372 A MISSION TO VITI. 



depth of the forest, where it shows its feathery crown 

 above the surrounding trees, forming what St. Pierre 

 poetically called "a forest above a forest," and what 

 the Fijians less skilfully wished to express by the name of 

 Cagicake, literally " above the wind." Before I had seen 

 the fruit the natives described it to me as being exactly 

 the same shape and colour as that of the Niu sawa, but 

 only very much smaller in size ; and in this they were 

 pretty correct. Whilst the fruit of the Niu sawa is as 

 large as a walnut, that of the Cagicake is about the size 

 of a jcoffee berry. The trunk is smooth, unarmed, and 

 about eight inches in diameter, furnishing capital ma- 

 terial for rafters, which the natives declare are so durable 

 that they last for ever. The leaves are pinnatifid, ten 

 to twelve feet long, and the lowermost segments being 

 narrower, and at least three or four times as long as the 

 uppermost, hang down in long fringes. When in the 

 dusk of the evening I first encountered this singlar palm 

 on the Macuata coast of Vanua Leva, it was this pecu- 

 liarity that first attracted my attention, otherwise I 

 should have taken it to be a Niu sawa. It was pitch- 

 dark before the tree was felled and dragged out of the 

 thick jungle in which it grew, when passing my fingers 

 over the surface of the segments, I felt a thick marginal 

 and elevated vein, which at once assured me that an 

 undoubtedly new addition had been made to my col- 

 lection. The disproportionate length of the lower seg- 

 ments, and the thick marginal vein pointed out, though 

 they had been first discovered in the absence of regular 

 daylight, are amongst the most striking peculiarities, 

 and ought to be seized upon by those giving a popular 



