646 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



The ordinary Fijian house looks, outside, like a great oblong 

 hay-stack, standing on a mound raised some few feet above the 

 surrounding level, with a long ridge-pole extending beyond the 

 roof at either gable, its ends sometimes ornamented with shells. 

 The hay-stack has a doorway or two, with a mat suspended in it. 

 Houses with greater pretensions, however, have the walls prettily 

 latticed with reeds, and distinct from the roof, which is elabo- 

 rately thatched, with great projecting eaves. Inside, immense 

 posts, usually of vesi-wood. {Afzelia hijuga), and a very ingenious 

 framework, support the roof. The interior decorations of sinnet 

 (cocoanut fiber), always in rectilinear patterns — for they do not 

 affect curves — are sometimes pretty. The black, squared lintels 

 of the doors are the stems of tree-ferns. On a great shelf over- 

 head is stored the family lau, a convenient Fijian word equiva- 

 lent to the Italian roha. Here it comprises their fishing-gear, 

 huge rolls of lappa or native cloth, mats, immense pottery ves- 

 sels, and the like. The shelves were also handy in war-time as a 

 point of vantage whence you could conveniently spear your 

 neighbor as he entered, and before his eyes became used to the 

 subdued light. The floor is strewed with mats, on which you re- 

 cline, and is usually raised a foot or so toward one end, which 

 enables you to take a graceful attitude, leaning on your elbow. 

 Cooking is done in a little hut outside, or sometimes there is a great 

 fireplace on the floor, confined by four logs, the smoke finding its 

 way out through the lofty roof. As you enter the house, you 

 find the mats being swept, or fresh ones unrolled and laid down. 

 Your traps are brought up from the boat, and, if this happens to 

 have grounded half a mile from the shore, you have perhaps 

 yourself been carried to land by these willing giants. A few 

 words are exchanged with the village chief or your host for the 

 time being — far too few, to my mind, even for politeness. I am 

 told they do not expect it. If they have ceased to expect polite- 

 ness from English gentlemen, tant pis ! I am helpless from igno- 

 rance of the language, and you hardly ever meet a Fijian who 

 knows any English — the missionaries, in whose hands their edu- 

 cation has been, having, wisely or otherwise, discouraged it. The 

 silent seance then till supper came, and indeed after, surrounded 

 by those pleasant and dignified faces, for whom I was necessarily 

 dumb, was often very irksome. Supper, however, comes at last, 

 provided from the materials before mentioned, and supplemented 

 I^erhaps by an offering of fish or turtle. The latter sounds syba- 

 ritic, but it is very far from being a delicacy when badly cooked, 

 and still less so when not quite fresh. And there is of course, as 

 accompaniment, the ever-present and ready-cooked yam, or ku- 

 mara (sweet-potato), or dalo (an arum-root), or bread-fruit, or 

 cassava (manioc). I think I have arranged them approximately 



