' WHO B UIL T THOSE FOR TS ?' 351 



the Pacific, has clone more to obstruct the material progress or 

 conversion of the natives, than any inborn savagery or heathen 

 ignorance. The time has surely arrived when British com- 

 merce, legitimately carried on, and restrained within its own 

 vocation, should reap the just reward of well-organised enter- 

 prise among these fabulously rich archipelagoes, leaving the 

 missionaries, Catholic and Protestant, to continue their spiritual 

 labours unmolested by word or deed, provided they, on their 

 part, confine themselves strictly to their proper province. 

 Some readers may consider this a dream, but I have seen an 

 approach to the reality in Fiji and elsewhere. 



The Kusaie islanders are evidently capable of a higher civili- 

 sation than most of the Polynesians. There can be no doubt 

 that, at one time, they were in a much more enlightened and 

 advanced state than they are to-day. Large tracts of their 

 land are covered with ruins of the most massive description, 

 built upon a general plan which could only have been designed 

 by men of great intelligence, and acquainted with mechanical 

 appliances for raising enormous weights, and transporting huge 

 blocks of stone considerable distances, both by land and water. 

 Like the Samoans and Tongans, they have ancient traditions 

 and forms of government. Traditional laws exist as to the 

 intercourse of different castes. The nobles converse by signs 

 and speech not understood by the majority of the people, and 

 words are tabooed in the Carolines as they are in Tonga. 



The inhabitants of Kusaie are of large size and strongly 

 built, with a nut-brown complexion. Their hair grows long in 

 curling tresses, which they confine in one knot at the back of 

 the head. Tattooing is generally practised, and, as is the case 

 with other Polynesian races, fragrant flowers are worn, as a 

 wreath round the head, or through the pierced cartilage of the 

 nostrils, while tortoise-shell ornaments for the ears are in great 



