332 ALEXANDER AGASSIZ 



esting and has confirmed all I have seen elsewhere in 

 the group. We are now going again to Vatu Leile, 

 where we had no chance of taking good photographs, 

 and then examine three or four little harbors between 

 here and Suva, and then I am done! except towing." 



TO WOLCOTT GIBBS 



On Board the Yaralla, 

 Suva, Dec. 15th, 1897. 



Here I have been at work now nearly six weeks with 

 only a couple days bad weather, and I have been most 

 successful ! It 's by far the best coral reef expedition 

 I 've undertaken, and were I to stop to-morrow I should 

 feel more than repaid for the time and outlay involved. 

 We have seen a good deal of the natives in their vil- 

 lages and found them most interesting. They are jolly, 

 hospitable, and friendly, and it seems hardly possible 

 that it is scarcely fifty years since Wilkes and their 

 great King, Thakombau, had such a row! We have 

 lunched with his son who is a great swell (he does not 

 look so), and who lives in the finest house in the Fijis 

 (native house, of course). He enjoys a pension of £500 

 from the English Government. When we saw him he 

 had just come back from a fishing trip, was dressed in a 

 loin cloth, his hair daubed with lime, and his face black- 

 ened, and in every way was not a prepossessing figure. 



I have learned more about the coral reefs during the 

 past month than in all my previous expeditions, and 

 think that I now understand the causes which have 

 brought about the existing state of things (in coral reef 

 ways) in the Fijis. Had I seen these islands I should 

 not have come here to bore. Whatever results are ob- 

 tained will not help to settle the reef question, and our 



