644 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



AMONG THE FIJI ISLANDS. 



By COUTTS TEOTTEK. 



IT is a very trite remark that the Pacific Ocean often emphati- 

 cally belies its title. I can not altogether defend it ; and, in 

 fact, it would he unreasonable to expect consistency from so vast 

 an expanse of the unstable. When the grateful Magellan, escap- 

 ing from the wintry horrors of the region now always associated 

 with his name, burst into the sunshine and balmy breezes beyond, 

 he did not, naturally, reflect very closely on the area over which 

 the new name was to be ajjplied. Big generalizations are danger- 

 ous ; but it is not absolutely a misnomer, and those who have 

 known this ocean for weeks together in its more gracious moods — 

 whether on its vast solitudes or among its scattered island groups 

 — will readily admit the justness of the title. 



On the morning we reached Fiji the sea was without a ripple, 

 and as we passed the pretty island of Mbengga, we scanned its 

 rich green slopes in vain for a sight of life. Primitive man and 

 his works do not show out prominently against tropical nature. 

 A slight haze veiled the great island of Viti Levu — i. e., great 

 Fiji ; but, as we came nearer, its grand and varied outline stood 

 out clearly in front of us, stretching far away to right and left. 

 Suva, the seat of government, has no striking features. The 

 houses lie scattered for a mile or two along a neck of land on one 

 side of a bay, at the head of which enters the Tamavua River. A 

 reef with a navigable opening crosses this bay, and forms a fair 

 harbor. But the marvelous fantastic outline of hills beyond the 

 bay — King David might have described them as "hopping" — 

 seen from the broad veranda of the Club House Hotel, was a 

 view of which one never tired. My expectations as regarded ho- 

 tel accommodation being small, I was agreeably surprised to find 

 a well-ordered, comfortable, two-storied house. It is true that 

 the chambermaid was a little black Solomon Island " boy " ; but 

 his views on cleanliness, and on meum and tuum, were not appre- 

 ciably behind those of his profession in. Europe ; and he was, be- 

 sides, when at home, a man-slayer and a cannibal. The only 

 drawback, indeed, to comfort lay in the fact that the bedrooms 

 were all open to the roof of corrugated zinc, and the noise of the 

 torrents of rain — I never saw rain like it — was deafening. But 

 rainy days, at that season anyhow — well, at all events, it is the 

 " dry season." 



Boat-voyaging in those regions is not only an enjoyable, but 

 in Fiji almost the only mode of locomotion, though there are 

 horses, and the number of tracks has of late years been consid- 



