NARRATIVE OF THE CRUISE. 4i»7 



instrument in metal. The addition of a clapper to a bell is a late improvement ; 

 Japanese bells still have none, but are sounded by means of a beam of wood swung 

 against them from outside. The term ' drum ' should perhaps be restricted to 

 instruments with a tense membrane. As a musical instrument, our ordinary English 

 chapel bell is much on a par with the Fijian drum, and makes an equally uncultivated 

 and unpleasant noise. 



" We ascended by the northernmost of the several mouths by which the great river, 

 the Rewa River, or Wai Levu (great water), opens into the sea. About the mouth of the 

 liver the land is flat and alluvial, and the river is bordered on either hand by a thick 

 growth of mangroves. Below these trees, slimy mud slopes are left bare at low tide, on 

 which a Periopkthalmus hops about like a frog. Close to the sea the mud is covered 

 with a Sea Grass (ffalophila), and hence looks greenish when left uncovered. Ducks 

 (Anas superciliosa) are common on the mud at the river's brink, as is also a Heron 

 (Ardea sacra), which pitches often in the mangroves, where also the Ptilotis sings and 

 the Parrot (Platycercus splendens) screams. 



" After a stay at Novaloa, where there is a mission college for training native 

 teachers, in which Fijians even learn rudimentary algebra, we drifted up with the rising 

 tide, grounding once and having to wait an hour to float off again. We passed many 

 villages, and several canoes full of people. We slept at Nadawa, where a small paddle 

 steamer, the property of a resident trader, Mr. Page, and built by him there, was under 

 repairs and waiting for new engines from Sydney. Here also was a sort of hotel kept by 

 two Englishmen. Mr. Page, who was extremely hospitable, gave me a bed. In the 

 morning we had to beat against the land breeze up the main river, which we had entered 

 just below Nadawa. The Wai Levu is a fine large river, in some reaches 300 yards 

 across, and occasionally in flood time pouring so much fresh water into the sea that 

 ships at anchor three miles off its entrance are able to take in their store for drinking 

 from the water alongside them. Dana 1 calculates the volume of water poured into 

 Rewa Harbour at 500,000 cubic feet per minute, and that discharged by all the mouths 

 of the river together at 1,500,000 cubic feet; the area of the delta is 60 square miles. 

 The mangrove thickets had ceased before the main river was reached, and here above 

 Navusa the low banks on either hand were hidden by a dense mass of a tall grass, a 

 species of Saccharum, or Wild Sugar Cane. For the first 12 miles or so of its lower course, 

 the river flows through its delta, and hence the banks are low and the country flat. 

 Some few miles above Navusa the banks become steeper, and low hills commence. These 

 gradually become more frequent as the ascent is continued, until steep slopes with 

 intervening stretches of flat land are of constant occurrence on either hand. The view 

 up the river now shows a succession of ridges, one behind the other, rising gradually 

 in the distance, and terminating in a line of distant blue mountains. The steep slopes 



1 Dana, U.S. Expl. Expeil., Geology, p. 348, Philadelphia, 1849. 



(XARR. CHALL. EXI\ — VOL. I. 1884.) 63 



