20 A MISSION TO VITI. 



add to the beauty of the scenery. The northern shores 

 especially, forming in conjunction with the opposite 

 island of Vanua Levu the Straits of Somosomo, teem 

 with vegetation, and present a picture of extreme 

 fertility. The trees and bushes are very thick, and 

 everywhere overgrown by white, blue, and pink con- 

 volvulus and other creepers, often entwined in graceful 

 festoons. Here and there the eye descries cleared 

 patches of cultivation, or low brushwood, overtopped 

 by the feathery crowns of magnificent tree-ferns ; vil- 

 lages nestling among them. The air is laden with mois- 

 ture, and there is scarcely a day without a shower of 

 rain. The north-western side of the island being more- 

 over, from its geographical position, deprived of the 

 direct action of the trade wind, the temperature feels 

 warm when in other parts of the group it is compara- 

 tively cool. In consequence of this, few whites have 

 taken up their residence in Taviuni, and the mission- 

 aries were about removing to Waikava, on Vanua Levu, 

 nearly opposite Wairiki, where their houses would have 

 the benefit of the trade wind and the sea breezes. Not 

 mere fancy made them leave Wairiki. Their health 

 was giving way, and their poor children suffered severely 

 from a disease of the eyes. Besides, Taviuni is now 

 thinly inhabited in comparison to formerly. The towns 

 of Vuna, Somosomo, Weilangi, Wainikeli, and Bouma 

 have only a small population. From Wilkes's descrip- 

 tion, for instance, I expected to find Somosomo, in 1840, 

 the capital of the island as well as the kingdom of 

 Cakaudrove, a large place, instead of a mere collection 

 of ten houses, with neither heathen temple, Christian 



