202 THE CORAL LANDS OF THE PACIFIC. 



wrecked crew of an unfortunate San Francisco schooner, 

 which sailed under my late firm's flag, I wish gratefully to 

 record. 



Some few miles past Wairiki is the extensive plantation of 

 Mr. Peckham, who has more than 700 acres planted with 

 cocoa-nuts, while his cattle, feeding in pastures like those of 

 England, thrive splendidly. A neighbouring island has been 

 planted by this gentleman with coffee-trees, specimens of 

 whose produce have realised high prices in the City of the 

 Golden Gate. 



To furnish a sort of directory to Fiji plantations is not my 

 object ; it is rather to give such samples of them as will enable 

 readers faintly to realise what is doing in one of the fairest pro- 

 vinces of the British Empire. Possibly I should only weary those 

 I want to interest in Coral Lands by long accounts of the great 

 trading station of the Messrs. Hennings at Loma Loma, with 

 the exquisite scenery which surrounds it ; of cotton plantations 

 in Chichia, or of the grand sugar-cane fields which border the 

 noble Rewa, in Viti Levu. On the last-named island a volume 

 could be written ; and the same may be said of each of the 

 clusters of groups constituting the Colony of Fiji But they 

 Avould bear a marked resemblance to Mark Twain's diary au 

 ' iteration ' which would almost necessitate an occasional ex- 

 pletive. We live in the busy, practical nineteenth century. 

 The salient features of a country once known, the details are 

 soon filled in by those interested. If my outline is fairly 

 accurate, I shall rest content. 



If Wai- Wai is a representative planter's bachelor home, so is 

 Mango Island the model of a cotton estate. 



