1260 



A US TR A LA SI A ILL US TRA TED. 



temperature has been found to be very favourable to sufferers from pulmonary disease 

 among our own countrymen, and consumptive patients have derived great benefit from a 

 residence in Fiji. The months of January, February and March form the most unpleasant 

 part of the year. These are known as " the hurricane months," and are generally wet, 

 muggy, and full of the dread of the impending storms. Men's spirits rise with the 



aneroid when the sun crosses the line in March, 

 for a hurricane has rarely been known in Fiji 

 after the vernal equinox. These storms begin 

 to blow from the eastward, work round to the 

 west, north about, and generally blow them- 

 selves out in fierce blasts from the south-west. 

 They are very destructive ; and yet it is a 

 question whether they do not effect more good 

 than harm. They clear away much of the 

 excessive vegetation, and destroy a vast quan- 

 tity of noxious insect life. After one of them 

 has done its worst the air is full of ozone, 

 and has a wonderfully exhilarating effect ; and, 

 though much injury is done to the growing 

 crops, it is observed that the next yield of the 

 fruit-bearing trees is always especially abundant; 

 while in the years that are free from hurri- 

 canes the crops are not so plentiful, and over- 

 whelming insect plagues occur. Still, on the 



whole, the white resident who can afford it prefers to betake himself to other climes 

 during the rainy season, and then to return and enjoy the blessings which follow the 

 hurricane after its violence has worked itself out, and its effects have passed away. 



The native population of Fiji some seventeen or eighteen years ago was, in round 

 numbers, about one hundred and fifty thousand ; but the plague of measles, brought by 

 British ships almost immediately after the annexation of the Group, swept away thirty- 

 five thousand of them, and their number is now estimated at one hundred and fifteen 

 thousand. They are a people of good physique, and often with fine, open, intelligent 

 features. Their language is distinctly Melanesian as distinguished from the Polynesian 

 tongue, and yet in physique they are much superior to the ordinary Melanesian type. 

 Whether this fact is owing to their intercourse with the Tongans, and to the consequent 

 admixture of Polynesian blood through them, is an open question. It is, however, certain 

 that there is much of the Tongan strain in many parts of Fiji. 



The Fijians are generally described as a frizzly-haired people, but this is a mistake. 

 The frizzled appearance of their hair is owing to the custom of dressing it with lime 

 or clay, which dries it up, and alters its colour to a reddish-brown ; but the hair may 

 be seen in its natural state on the heads of children, and shows itself to be black with 

 a purplish tinge, and often with a wave or ripple, rather than a curl in it. The skin 

 of the Fijians varies in colour from a light brown to a full black, and is harsher than 

 that of their Polynesian neighbour. Sir John Thurston considers them to be " a branch 



THE FIJIAN KING, THAKAMBAU. 



