A SAMPLE OF POLYNESIAN WANDERINGS. 177 



largest class close in shore. Opposite this anchorage arc 

 some splendid tracts of level land, just suitable to the require- 

 ments of a growing town. The entrance to the bay is a fine 

 passage, exceeding 3 miles in breadth. A chain of hills, 

 following the coast line, stretches nearly round the bay. These 

 hills are from 700 to 3000 feet in height ; while Mount 

 Thurston, to the north-east of Savu Savu Bay, is judged ap- 

 proximately to be at least 4160 feet high; and a belt of level 

 country, ranging in breadth from 1 to 5 miles, lies between 

 them and the sea. 



Like nearly all the land in Fiji, the soil is of the most fertile 

 description. Near the beach it is of a light loamy character, 

 increasing in richness as the hills are approached. Vegetation 

 of the most luxuriant type, as usual in all Coral Lands, stretches 

 lown to the sandy beach. It is now some little time since I 

 first saw Savu Savu Bay, but the impression its wondrous 

 beauty made upon me is unforgotten ; I think the intense 

 silence all around struck me even more than the beauty of the 

 place. Once landed by the little dingy belonging to our inter- 

 insular packet (the Mary), we were hospitably received by her 

 owner, Captain Barrack, now a member of the Legislative 

 Council. 



The loan of a boat and its stowage with divers and sundry 

 packages completed our business at Captain Barrack's, and 

 towards seven in the evening the Fiji ' boys' we had engaged 

 were steadily pulling 7 miles across the bay for the 

 northern shore, where at Vu-ni-wai-Levu my brother had 

 chosen to fight for existence, and replace, perhaps in the distant 

 future, money not lost by him in that luckless struggle of 

 'Stars and Bars ' against ' Stars and Stripes.' He had been 

 extremely unfortunate, for he had only a few months previously 

 been burnt out of house and home, and a two-roomed wooden 



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