I25 4 AL'STRALASIA ILLUSTRATED. 



interests alike in trade and in the missions on the Islands, and would be a source of 

 annoyance to all the colonies of Australia. A strong protest was at once raised against it 

 by the veteran missionary, the Rev. J. G. Paton, and the Press supported it in some measure.' 

 The Sydney Morning Jlcrald said that " Whatever rights the French Government may 

 claim .to exercise in New Caledonia, it can hardly claim a right to convey its criminals 

 to islands that are not French territory, and there practically to let them loose. The 

 British Government would at least be justified in strongly protesting against such a 

 proceeding as an unfriendly act. Experience has shown that notwithstanding all precau- 

 tions, escapes are made from New Caledonia to the colonies of Australia, and to 

 permit the employment of convicts on other islands where there is no penal establish- 

 ment and the same precautions should not be maintained, would be almost equivalent 

 to landing them there and giving them their discharge." 



The British colonies are deeply interested in this, apart from the claims which 

 discovery, survey and missionary operations on the Islands may give. The Islanders, 

 who prefer British protection, would be imperilled by the convict element among them, 

 and a great wrong would be inflicted on all the humanizing and religious agencies at 

 work among the natives. The free colonies of Australia would be seriously disturbed 

 by it. There is little doubt that the native population of the New Hebrides is rapidly 

 diminishing, and will soon cease to be. The Islands are fertile, and capable of producing 

 many tropical fruits. As they are so contiguous to Australian shores they will attract 

 European settlers, and may soon become, like Fiji and New Caledonia, a European colony. 



THE FIJIAN ISLANDS. 



'"T^HE Fiji Group (properly Viti) lies between the fifteenth and twenty-first parallels 

 *- of south latitude, and longitude one hundred and seventy east to one hundred and 

 seventy-eight west, the meridian of Greenwich passing through Taviuni, in the middle of 

 the Group. It consists of more than two hundred islands, some of which are of consider- 

 able extent with a numerous population, while others are mere islets of sea-sand and 

 rock, many of them uninhabited, and visited only occasionally by the natives for fishing 

 or other purposes. The largest island is Navitilevu (Great Viti) ; the first syllable, na, 

 which is the definite article, showing that Viti was at one time a common noun, with 

 a meaning now lost beyond hope of recovery, which, if it could be recovered, might tell 

 us something of great value. Navitilevu is about ninety miles long, by fifty in breadth, 

 and is to quote a paper by Sir John Thurston " nearly as large as Jamaica, twice as 

 large as Trinidad, and six times as large as the Mauritius. Next in extent comes Vanua- 

 levu (Great Land), one hundred miles long, but of no considerable breadth. The other 

 inhabited islands vary in size from large islands like Taviuni, Koro, Ngau, Kandavu, 

 Ovalau, and others, each with twenty or thirty native villages on it, down to the little 

 islet with its one village and its four or five, score of people. The entire land area of 

 the Group is greater than that of all the British West India Islands." 



A great barrier-reef, more or less broken, surrounds the Group to the eastward, 

 northward and westward, closing in with the land to the south-west of Navitilevu, and 

 leaving the southern quarter open. This barrier is broken by numerous passages ; to 



