A MISSION TO VITI. 



on the 20th of April, and had thus been twenty-three 

 days on the passage, four of which we had strong gales 

 and were compelled to heave to. We bantered the 

 Captain a good deal about the long passage, and as- 

 cribed it all to his having left on a Friday, at the same 

 time accumulating instances where departures on that 

 unlucky day had been followed by as disastrous conse- 

 quences as w r hen thirteen sit down to table. But he 

 thought it high time that such vestiges of superstition 

 should be rooted up, and said there was no more in 

 them than in the Flying Dutchman. On the following 

 day we were off Lakeba (Lakemba). It being Sunday, 

 Captain Birkenshaw would not give offence by sending 

 a boat on shore on the Sabbath. I suggested that we 

 might all go to church as soon as landed, but he main- 

 tained that it was as much as his place was worth to 

 entertain such 'an idea; so we had the mortification 

 of stopping another day on board, and sail backwards 

 and forwards between the islands of Lakeba and Olorua. 

 I enjoyed much the fine sight that thus was offered. 

 The sky was clear and bright, and a number of little 

 islands and islets were rising from the blue sea, the 

 waves breaking on their rocky shores, or forming curly 

 crests on the long reefs that encircle many of them. 

 They were all more or less elevated, and covered with 

 vegetation, here with patches of grass or brake and 

 other hard-leaved ferns, there with brushwood or larger 

 trees; the presence of countless screw-pines and iron- 

 wood (Casuarina) trees imparting to them their peculiar 

 Polynesian character. Well may it be said, that the 

 graceful waving iron-wood bears on its very face the 



