48 THE SEA. 



tasteless wild tobacco, rolled up rapidly and neatly, and tied round with a fibre, formed the 

 post-prandial cigars, which were lighted by the women at the fire, and passed from their 

 lips to the guests'. 



The natural productions of this group are extensive, and comprise bread-fruit, taro, 

 cocoa-nuts, yams, bananas, plantains, guavas, oranges and lemons, wild and cultivated 

 tobacco, sugar, cotton, and coffee. The india-rubber tree is cultivated, and among the leading- 

 exports are dried cocoa-nut and pearl-shell. As there are at the present time comparatively 

 few white settlers perhaps not over 2,500 in all the islands there are innumerable 

 openings for settlement, and Fiji, with many other neighbouring islands, will doubtless 

 soon afford fresh examples of British enterprise. 



The point touched by the steamers is Kandavu, on one of the southernmost islands, 

 where Mount Washington, a fine mountain, rears its head 3,000 feet into the clouds. A 

 visitor says : " From the eastern point of land run out miles of coral reef, on which the ocean 

 rollers are breaking grandly, and outside this barrier we take our pilot on board. The 

 entrance to Kandavu harbour is narrow and intricate, and here the Macgregor, one of the 

 mail steamers, struck on a submerged reef, and remained for several days hard and fast 

 aground/' The passage has been properly buoyed and lighted, and the New Company 

 have built offices and stores, and established a coaling station here. 



" The view of Port Ugaloa from the entrance is very beautiful. On our left the coral 

 reef encloses a still lagoon of the softest, lightest green; before us hills and mountains, 

 covered from base to summit with the richest vegetation, are tipped with fleecy cloud; 

 and on our right, dividing the waters of the bay, is Ugaloa Island, its slopes feathery 

 with the foliage of the cocoa-palm and banana, half hidden in which appear here and 



there the low brown huts of the natives The brothers L. accompany me ashore 



on Ugaloa, landing close to a small collection of huts scattered about just above the 

 coral-strewn beach. It is Sunday afternoon, and a native missionary is preaching to 

 some fifty men, women, and children, squatting on their hams on the mat-covered floor 

 of a neat, white-washed mission house. Amongst the congregation is a tall native, with 

 a thick cane, keeping silence by tapping the heads of the inattentive. The preacher is 

 eloquent and energetic in gesture ; but Fiji is hardly a pretty language to listen to, being 

 decidedly characterised by queer guttural sounds, and spoken very fast. The sermon over, 

 a hymn is read out and sung to a rather monotonous dirge-like chant, and the congregation 

 disperse. We are at once surrounded by an olive-skinned crowd ; the ladies' dresses are 

 minutely examined, for a white lady has scarcely been seen in Kandavu before the present 

 year. The gentlemen have to display their watches and chains, and by means of shouting and 

 signs every one is soon carrying on a vigorous conversation. Why is it that one always elevates 

 the voice when trying to make one's native tongue intelligible to a foreigner ? 



" We wander away into the bush, and are soon lost in a wilderness of ferns, creepers, 

 bananas, cocoa-palms, and chestnut-trees. We meet with a young native, and make signs to 

 him that we are thirsty, and wish to refresh ourselves with the juice of a green cocoa-nut. 

 Clutching the trunk with both hands, he almost runs up a palm, and our wants are soon 

 plentifully supplied. He jeceives his douceur with apparent nonchalance, and proceeds to tie 

 it up in a corner of his sulu with a fibre of banana bark. 



