14 A MISSION TO VITI. 



around my abode, instead of rushing at once to distant 

 parts, where no doubt fine treasures may be expected. 

 The first day I shall probably not get any plants save 

 the most common weeds, and most likely not venture 

 out of sight of head-quarters. But after I have collected 

 the objects with which under any circumstances I must 

 become familiar, and w r ould most likely fancy I had in 

 my collection, because they w r ere so common, I am able 

 on the second and third day to venture a good deal 

 further, and when at last I make more distant excursions, 

 I am at least certain that in bringing home anything, I 

 am not carrying coals to Newcastle or owls to Athens. 



The boys were quite indefatigable in assisting me to 

 collect, and telling me the different local names of the 

 plants. A great number of these names I was already 

 acquainted with, having learnt them from the Fijian 

 dictionary, and it did not take many weeks before I 

 was familiar with all the vernacular nomenclature of 

 the most generally diffused organized beings. This feat 

 the natives could never comprehend. They thought it 

 strange that at a time when my whole knowledge of 

 Fijian amounted to little more than yes or no, and a 

 few sentences absolutely forced upon me, I should be 

 able to pronounce the names of almost anything they 

 held up to my admiring gaze. The Lakeban boys also 

 took us to a ravine, where some years ago Dr. Harvey, 

 of Trinity College, Dublin, had collected a fine fern 

 (Dipteris Horsfieldii, J. Smith), which has magnificent 

 fan-shaped leaves, when growing in favourable situa- 

 tions, from eight to ten feet high, and four feet across. 

 The plant is found in all parts of Fiji, New Caledonia, 



