42 A MISSION TO VITI. 



I found only partially true ; indeed, I have never been 

 in a country where it is more difficult to arrive at real 

 facts than Fiji. To say nothing about those who make 

 it a point to diffuse absolute untruths, nearly everybody 

 seems to rejoice in overstating a case or giving a most 

 partial version of it ; and it requires no slight discrimi- 

 nation to keep on good terms with those with whom 

 one wishes to stand well, so fearfully rampant is the 

 gossip. The most outrageous stories were unblushingly 

 circulated about the different consuls and missionaries ; 

 and sometimes I felt hot and cold, while having to be 

 an unwilling listener to scandal of this description. 

 People in civilized countries do not know how much they 

 owe to the laws that protect them, at least against the 

 grossest libels. Talk of village scandal, it is nothing to 

 it. Of course, in a society of whites so limited, this 

 state of affairs might be expected, but a new feature in 

 the history of gossip is that all the tittle-tattle of the 

 other groups of the Pacific was dealt out as so many 

 delicious morsels in Fiji. The doings of known per- 

 sonages in Tahiti, Samoa, and Tonga were discussed 

 with avidity. Fancy, we in Europe troubling ourselves 

 with the small talk of places more than a thousand 

 miles distant. 



Before the arrival of the British consul, several of 

 these small island schooners carried on a profitable traf- 

 fic in human beings. They used to go to the large 

 islands, and purchase young women, for whom from five 

 to ten dollars in barter were usually given. These women 

 were sold again to whites in other parts of the group, 

 often for fifty dollars each. Several women were pointed 



