AMONG THE CANNIBAL ISLANDS. 229 



AMONG THE CANNIBAL ISLANDS. 



BY LAENAS GIFFOKD WELD. 



Q< PREAD out before you a chart of the South Pacific one 

 k? upon which are set down the many details useful to the 

 navigator of this strangely interesting region. Besides the in- 

 tricate labyrinth of islands, reefs, rocks, and shoals which are 

 scattered over its surface, there are recorded the variations of the 

 compass, the directions of the ocean currents, and the results 

 of countless soundings. Running your pencil through all the 

 points on this map for which the indicated depth is fifteen hun- 

 dred fathoms or thereabouts, you will be able to trace out an 

 irregular and more or less interrupted band, extending from the 

 East Indian seas nearly to the coast of South America. Within 

 the area thus marked out the sea is comparatively shallow ; so 

 that, were its bed to be elevated some thousands of feet, we 

 should see emerging from its surface a vast continental area, 

 bordered on the north and south by open seas. 



We are told that such a continent once really existed, but 

 that for thousands of years it has been slowly subsiding. The 

 coral polyp has all this time been building up the countless reefs 

 and atolls of this region, keeping their summits flush with the 

 surface of the sea as the subsidence has gone on ; so that here, 

 instead of the dull monotony of an ocean desert, we have one of the 

 most striking physical features of the globe. There are volcanic 

 masses among these coral islands which, rising some few thou- 

 sand feet above the level of the great barrier reefs that surround 

 them, may be looked upon as remnants of this vanishing conti- 

 nent of the Pacific. Among these ancient landmarks none are of 

 more interest than the great Fiji group of islands. 



Until within quite recent years the word Fiji was regarded as 

 a synonym for all that is barbaric ; and if that epithet, " King 

 of the Cannibal Islands," ever had any real claimant, it must have 

 been in the person of Thakombau, the native potentate who 

 played so important a part in the history of Fiji from the time 

 of its first settlement by Europeans till it was formally annexed 

 by Great Britain. 



This regenerate old cannibal had spent the first forty years of 

 his life in wars with his neighboring chiefs and in the practice of 

 the most horrible barbarities. The strangling of his own mother 

 and of his father's four other wives was only a part of the usual 

 ceremony attending the assumption of the title of Tui Viti, or 

 King of Fiji. Thakombau was, however, not hostile to the 

 Wesleyan missionaries who had established themselves within 

 his domain ; but, while he listened respectfully to their remon- 



