Stack 

 Innex 



PEEFACE. 



(TO THE SECOND EDITION.) 



NOTWITHSTANDING the almost prohibitory price at which the 

 first edition of ' Coral Lands ' was issued, the very flattering 

 reception which my work has received from both the public and 

 press has resulted in its now being altogether out of print. 

 Every day public attention is being more and more directed 

 to the infant Colony of Fiji and the surrounding groups in the 

 Pacific. 



The importance of Polynesia will not perhaps be thoroughly 

 understood by the majority of my countrymen until the com- 

 pletion of the Panama Canal has placed these rich archipela- 

 goes on the direct route from London to our Australian 

 Colonies. 



In the meantime a popular edition of such a work as ' Coral 

 Lands ' may tend to prepare the public mind for estimating 

 the full value in every sense of the islands of the great South 

 Sea. The information afforded in this edition has been brought 

 down to the latest news from the Pacific, and the whole work 

 has been thoroughly revised. 



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