MANGO AND MANGO COTTON. 203 



CHAPTER XXIII. 



MANGO AND MANGO COTTON. 



I PREFACE this reference to Mango by a personal acknowledg- 

 ment. To Mr. Rupert Ryder one of the most active partners 

 in the firm of brothers who lately owned the island now 

 transferred to the Mango Island Company (which has a capital 

 of 100,000) I am indebted for recent information of the 

 progress of the estate; information received in fact while 

 writing. Of his courteous hospitality I will not speak, except 

 that you could expect nothing else of him or his family. 



Mango Island, lying about 14 miles south of Vanua Balavu, 

 was purchased in 1863 by one of the brothers Ryder from the 

 great Fiji house of the Messrs. Hennings, who still own more 

 than 60,000 acres in Fiji. In 1864 the pioneer Mr. Ryder 

 was joined by two of his brothers ; cotton planting was deter- 

 mined on, and the estate has been 'run' with that end in 

 view for more than fifteen years, and is in fact the longest 

 established concern in the group, others which preceded it 

 having ceased to exist. 



The island is nearly round, and enclosed almost entirely by 

 a coral reef, the circle being completed by an excellent road- 

 stead harbour, protected from the prevailing S.E. trade- winds, 

 and properly buoyed. This has been visited by several men- 

 of-war. Like all the islands embraced in Coral Lands, it is of 

 volcanic origin. The coast-line is formed of high hills, while 

 the interior is a basin with a formation like the flattened crater 

 of an extinct volcano. Seven hundred acres of the finest Sea 

 Island cotton are now under cultivation. The land selected 

 by the Messrs. Ryder for this purpose was the heavily-timbered 



