A LITTLE ' BLOW THE CANDLE NUT. 185 



be expected ; and hurricanes of great violence do occasionally 

 visit the South Sea Islands, though they are insignificant in 

 comparison with the cyclones which sweep over the West 

 Indies, such, for instance, as that which destroyed the mail 

 .steamship Rhone, and a whole fleet of merchantmen at St. 

 Thomas, in the autumn of 1867. Houses have existed in 

 Levuka for years, which under a similar visitation would have 

 been blown miles out to sea. The little dread the residents 

 have of a ' blow ' is shown by the fact that a few fathoms of 

 light chain added to the roof of a weather-board shanty is con- 

 sidered sufficient precaution. 



Savu Savu Bay is more sheltered than Levuka, though 

 storms of violence have reached its shores ; on one occasion my 

 luckless brother's house and all that he had was blown into 

 the sea. However, I have the strongest doubts, from personal 

 investigation, whether my brother's ' residence ' would have 

 stood a ' strong wind ' on any English or Scottish upland. 1 

 have seen powerful men knocked down by a ' gale ' at Hastings, 

 and know something of a ' strong breeze ' off the ' Three 

 Kings ' to the north of New Zealand ; and if some of my 

 Polynesian friends had been in Sussex on the one occasion, or 

 in the powerful 3000-ton American steamer on the other, they 

 would have staked their lives that both were ' hurricanes.' 

 Unquestionably there are certain unmistakable natural indica- 

 tions of the approach of a ' blow,' and as nearly every white 

 settler claims to be weather-wise, the incessant prophecies one 

 hears as to ' blows ' are really alarming. 'A blow' is certain for 

 ' to-morrow ' or ' the day after,' or ' this week ;' or else ' they 

 are having it hot in some other part of the group.' One would 

 almost think the wish was father to the thought, though a 

 strong wind may be the ruin of many a planter's hopes as 

 regards cocoa-nut and other crops. Thunder-storms of some 



