36 



Llewa, and thai which fell on the other side by the 

 Navua river. We passed Koro Wai-wai on the 

 way, and although the path was on the top of an 

 elevated ridge the view to he obtained was an ex- 

 tremely limited one, on account of the rain and fog. 

 The path afterwards became very bad, precipitous, 

 muddy, and slippery. Several streams were passed, 

 the path taking us occasionally along their rocky beds. 

 After crossing the Wai ni Awa, at a cleanly kept village 

 of the same name, the path ran along the crest of a 

 ridge whose rocky sides were almost perpendicular, 

 and large rocks seemed to block the way. We 

 scrambled over these huge rocks by the aid of rough 

 steps cut in the slippery stone and upright logs with 

 notches cut into them for the feet. The top of the 

 rock was a plateau on which several circular terraces, 

 one above another, in the form of fortifications, had 

 been made by the natives. The place has evidently 

 been one of the old " fighting towns," or forts, into 

 which the people retired in troublous times, when not 

 only tribes had their feuds, but neighbouring villages 

 even seemed always to have a standing quarrel to he 

 fought out as opportunity offered. These old forti- 

 fications are numerous in Fiji. Every mountain top 

 is such a one, and the narrow mountain ridges lead- 

 ing to it are cut across by deep ditches to act as lines 

 of def< oce against invaders, and to render the "fight- 

 ing town " safer to dwell in. Hence, in a great mea- 

 sure, the reason is to be found why the Fijians directed 

 their paths along the beds of streams and the tops of 

 ridges, from the latter of which good views of the 

 country could be obtained. These made progress diffi- 

 cult, and, for the same reason, the immediate ap- 

 proaches to villages were often of the most intricate 



