FIJI ISLANDS. 325 



and turned again. Joe, the pilot, cautioned us about jumping 

 over into the water, as he said there were sharks. A shark, 

 about three feet long, is common as far up as Mr. Storck's plan- 

 tation, and large sharks are believed to be common in the lower 

 parts of the stream, and are mentioned in Jackson's Narrative, in 

 the appendix to Capt. Erskine's " Islands of the Western Pacific," 

 as often taking down natives in the neighbourhood of Ilewa. 

 At Naclawa, however, Mr. Page bad never seen one, and I saw 

 women there constantly standing up to their necks in the water, 

 collecting freshwater clams (Unio), evidently without fear. 



The Shark of the Wai Levu is Carclmrias gangeticus, found 

 also in the Tigris at Bagdad, 350 miles distant in a straight line 

 from the sea, where it attains a length of 2 -J feet. It is common 

 in large rivers in India. It breeds in fresh water in Yiti Levu, 

 inhabiting a lake shut off from the sea by a cataract.* 



There are sharks inhabiting fresh water in other parts of the 

 world, as in South America, in the Lake of Nicaragua ; f and in 

 a freshwater lake in the Philippines there lives permanently a 

 "Pay," a species of Saw-fish. A peculiar genus of Mugiiidce 

 occurs in the Wai Levu, G-onostomyxus ("sa loa" Fijian). It has 

 been described by Dr. Macdonald.J 



Joe, our pilot, was I suppose, about 35 years old. He had no 

 notion of his age, but said, when asked by the interpreter in his 

 own language (he knew no English at all), that he was five 

 years old. When asked if he had eaten human flesh, he said 

 " No "; that he had killed four men, but had never been allowed 

 a taste by the chiefs. He evidently thought himself in this 

 respect an injured man. He had had four wives. He suffered much 

 from cold on the river in the early morning ; but, dressed up in a 

 blanket suit by the Blue-jackets, who were very kind to him, 

 managed to keep alive, and seemed to enjoy himself pretty well, 

 especially at meal times. 



We passed a hill, opposite which the water of the river is 

 supposed to have the effect of making the whiskers and beard 

 grow, and the spot is resorted to by young Fijians, in order to 



* "Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist./' Ser. 4, Vol. IV., No. 79, July 1874, p. 36. 



+ Thos. Belt, " The Naturalist in Nicaragua," p. 45. 



% J. D. Macdonald, R.N., M.D., F.RS., " Proc. Zool. Soc." 1869, p. 38. 



