2/8 FIJI ISLANDS. 



and the mouths of the trough-Uke cavities are contracted to 

 narrow slit-Hke openings, the trunks being hollowed out through 

 these. The Japanese wooden bell, or narrow-mouthed wooden 

 drum, seems to be merely a more perfect development of 

 these drums, and no doubt the actual bell was derived from 

 the copying of some such wooden instrument in metal. The 

 addition of a clapper to a bell is a late improvement. Japanese 

 bells still have none, but are sounded by means of a beam of 

 wood, swung against them from outside. The term "drum" 

 should perhaps be restricted to instruments with a tense 

 membrane. 



As a musical instrument, our ordinary English Chapel Bell 

 is much on a par with the Fijian drum, and makes an equally 

 uncultivated and unpleasant noise. 



The great river, the Rewa River, or Wai Levu (great water), 

 opens into the sea by several mouths. We ascended by the 

 northernmost. About the mouth of the river the land is flat 

 and alluvial, and the river is bordered on either hand by a thick 

 growth of mangroves. Below these trees, slimy mud slopes are 

 left bare at low tide, on which a Periophthalnius* hops about 

 on the feed just as a frog might hop about. Close to the sea 

 the mud is covered with a sea grass {Ma/op/u/a), and hence 

 looks greenish when left uncovered. Ducks (Anas s2tperdliosd) 

 are common on the mud at the river's brink, as is also a Heron 

 {Demiegretta sacra), which pitches often in the Mangroves. 

 The Ftilofis sings amongst these mangroves, and the Parrot 

 Platycercus spleiidens screams amongst them. 



After a stay at Novaloa, where there is a mission college for 

 training native teachers, and where Fijians learn even rudimen- 

 tary algebra, we drifted up with the rising tide, grounding once 

 and having to wait an hour to float off again. We passed 

 many villages, and several canoes full of people. We slept at 

 Nadawa, where a small paddle steamer, the property of a trader 

 living there, Mr. Page, and built by him there, was under 

 repairs and waiting for new engines from Sydney. Here also 

 was a sort of Hotel kept by two Englishmen. Mr. Page, who 

 was extremely hospitable, gave me a bed. 



In the morning we had to beat against the land breeze up 

 the main river, which we had entered just below Nadawa. 

 The Wai Levu is a fine large river, in some reaches 300 yards 

 across, and in occasional flood time pours so much fresh 

 water into the sea, that ships at anchor three miles off its 

 entrance are able to take in their store of drinking-water from 

 the water alongside them.t Dana calculates the volume of 



* See page 256. 



•}• Dana, "Geology of United States Expl. Exp." p. 348. 



