166 IOWA STUDIES IN NATURAL HISTORY 
Our destination in Penang was the beautiful home of Mr. A. E. 
Bailey, the District Commissioner of Ra. This gentleman and his 
estimable wife welcomed us most heartily and looked after our 
every comfort and need. Early next morning riding horses were 
at the gate and Mr. Sanders of the Police foree accompanied us 
on a long ride to the Rakiraki range which marks a sort of bound- 
ary between the wet and dry sections of this part of Fiji. The top 
of the range is green and forest clad; intermittently great banks 
of clouds hovered over its top but dissipated very soon if they 
started down the valleys in our direction. It had not rained in 
the Ra district for some time. However, this was the dry season 
and when the wet season comes there is enough for a good sugar 
crop of high quality. The mode of cultivation, rattooning, and 
so on are very different from that on the Rewa or Navua deltas 
where rainfall is very high. 
As we ascended into the foothills the lava origin of the range 
became apparent; the rimrock made a bold scarp. Such a place 
is Suicide Rock whose vertical, columnar wall of reddish color is 
several hundred feet high. Suddenly, as the rain forest was 
reached, there was a change in the vegetation. The wood became 
dense and damp and the trees closed overhead. 
At the top of the range we looked back to the broad Penang 
valley with its regularly laid out canefields. Beyond the range 
was a greener region with dense bush crowding in on the small 
cultivated areas. Nowhere had we ever seen such a contrast in 
the space of a few miles. 
After riding back to a certain point in the range we dismounted 
and turned over our ponies to a prison trusty who had been 
carrying our lunch. He took them down the hill to the Fijian 
village a mile and a half away, while we struck off through the 
bush to see some old tribal boundaries in the form of a cairn on 
the hill. From this point we started down a steep valley at the 
end of which we could plainly see our mounts by the aid of our 
field glasses. It was early afternoon. 
We dropped down a steep slope into tall grass at its foot. The 
grass was harsh and half dead, cutting our hands and faces at 
every move. Moreover, it was completely entwined by a slender 
but tough vine called voivoi. Progress was next to impossible; 
go back we could not, the slope was too steep. By the use of a 
pocket knife to cut the vines we made about fifty yards in a half 
hour. It was hot, the grass was over our heads, we became sep- 
