"TUI VITI." 75 



pact nation than they do at present. Of course, I am 

 aware the title " Tui Viti " has been revived only lately ; 

 owing, it is stated, to a letter which General Miller, 

 formerly H. B. M. Consul-General at the Hawaiian, or 

 Sandwich Islands, addressed to " Tui Viti," and which 

 Cakobau, as the most powerful chief of the leading 

 state, thought it right to open. But the title "Tui 

 Viti" occurs in many ancient legends current in 

 various groups of Polynesia, and could scarcely have 

 originated with such close neighbours, who would 

 rather be apt to detract than to magnify the power of a 

 foreign nation already far above them in the exercise 

 of various useful arts and manufactures. Old traditions 

 further state the Fijians to have been an unwarlike 

 people, until they had established a more intimate and 

 frequent intercourse with the light-coloured races of 

 the eastern groups, when sanguinary intratribal quarrels 

 became almost their normal condition. These traditions 

 would be favourable to the existence of a powerful mo- 

 narchy in Fiji, such as legendary evidence represents it 

 as being at one time, and also its ultimate extinction 

 and remoulding by the growing power of petty chiefs, 

 skilful in new practices of war acquired whilst abroad. 

 The hypothesis advanced derives additional strength from 

 the fact of all Fijians, though scattered over a group of 

 more than two hundred different islands, speaking one 

 language, having a powerfully developed sense of nation- 

 ality, and feeling as one people. No ancient Roman 

 could have pronounced the words " Oivis Eomanus sum " 

 with greater pride or dignity than a modern Fijian calls 

 himself a " Kai Viti" a Fijian. We can scarcely con- 



