L840.] VEGETABLE PRODUCTIONS. 337 



extirpate it, or keep it down, and where there is room for a 

 single shoot to grow, it will spring up and flourish ; the 

 flexible twigs of this shrub are employed in wattling, and 

 the tough and elastic roots are made into bows. The toa, or 

 iron-wood, is manufactured into clubs, spears, bowls and 

 other vessels, and articles of furniture ; it is also used for 

 arrows, — the strips of wood being charred and inserted in 

 pieces of cane Spears are also made of the cocoa-nut wood : 

 they are ordinarily ten or fifteen feet in length, sometimes 

 wound with sennit, and either tipped with bone or charred at 

 the point. 



Pine timber is quite plenty, and is chiefly used in building 

 their canoes ; for masts and spars it is very valuable. The 

 sandal-wood, or yase, is almost exhausted. 



Edible roots of different kinds are in great abundance, and 

 most of them are cultivated. The most important of these 

 are the yam and the taro ; the kawai, resembling the Malay 

 batata; the ivia, arrow-root, and ti. Other wild roots, and 

 wild berries growing on the mountains, are eaten when there 

 is a failure in the supply of other products. Turmeric is 

 cultivated for cosmetic purposes, and the sugar cane is found, 

 both in a wild state, and in the gardens and plantations of 

 the natives. Two varieties of the gossypium are indigenous; 

 one producing a nankeen-colored, and the other a clear white 

 cotton of fine and even texture. The cotton-tree, [bombax) 

 is also found growing to the height of fifteen or twenty feet. 

 Tobacco is grown in considerable quantities, and smoking is 

 one of the chief enjoyments of the Feejeean. Melons, cu- 

 cumbers, pine apples, guavas, capsicums, cape-gooseberries, 

 and native tomatoes, are abundant; and nearly all of the 

 most valuable foreign vegetables found in the tropics, or in 

 the temperate zone, have been introduced here and cultivated 

 with success. 



Flowering plants and shrubs are quite common. The 

 scarlet flowers of the callistemon, and the bright yellow blos- 

 soms of the cordia, everywhere peep out from amid the 



dense mangrove thickets. Acacias, gorgeously decked with 



15 



