498 THE VOYAGE OF H.M.S. CHALLENGER. 



are covered with a thickly interwoven vegetation, the large trees being covered with 

 epiphytes, ferns, lycopods, and climbing aroids, and festooned with creepers, which 

 form in places a continuous sheet of bright green, falling in gracefully curved 

 steps from the top of the slopes to the bottom, and almost entirely concealing their 

 supports. Here and there tall tree-ferns rear their heads amongst the tangled mass, and 

 palms (two species of Kentia) form a conspicuous feature amongst the foliage. We were 

 forced to anchor in the evening to await the turn of the tide. As it became dusk numbers 

 of Fruit Bats flew overhead, whilst in the beds of reeds a constant cry was kept up by 

 the coots and water rails. On the tide turning we had to take spells of an hour each at 

 the oars as our time was short, and by paddling on gently all night we reached before 

 daylight a spot, about 35 miles from the mouth of the river, called ' Viti.' 



" Mr. Storck, a German, and his wife live at Viti. He was the assistant of 

 Mr. Seemann during his investigation of the plants of Fiji, and was extremely 

 hospitable. He had taken to growing sugar, as cotton had failed, and had a splendid 

 crop, which he calculated to weigh 62 tons of cane to the acre. Mills were about to be 

 erected, and there seemed every prospect of sugar paying well. There were already 

 twenty plantations of sugar on the Eewa River. It was curious to see a man from the 

 New Hebrides Islands, so notorious for the murders of white men committed in them, 

 acting as nurse to one of Mrs. Storck's children, and hushing the baby tenderly to sleep 

 in his arms ; he was one of the imported labourers, concerning whom so much has been 

 written. About Viti there are abundance of large Fruit Pigeons and of the pigeons with 

 purple heads, identical with those of Tongatabu (Ptilinopus porphyraceus) ; also of 

 the ' Kula ' (Domicella solitaria), and the ' Kaka ' (Platijcercus splendens). The Kaka 

 attacks the sugar canes, and does considerable damage. There are some huge fig-trees 

 at Viti, with the typical plank-like roots and compound stems. Here also grow one or 

 two cocoanut trees, which are rarities so far up the river, for at the inland villages along 

 the river there are no cocoanut trees, and a regular trade is carried on by the natives 

 in bringing the nuts up the river from the coast in canoes, to barter them with the 

 inland people. The black rat and Norway rat are abundant at Viti, and, according to 

 Mr. Storck, there is also a native field mouse, but I could not procure one in the short 

 time available. I do not know whether a field mouse is known from Fiji. A large 

 fresh water prawn is common, and is caught for eating by the Fijian women, and in 

 their baskets I saw also an Eel (Murcena). A red stratified tufa, with a slight 

 inclination of its strata, is exposed in section opposite Mr. Storck's house ; it is said to 

 contain no fossils. An exactly similar rock is exposed at various spots for several miles 

 down the river. 



" On the way down the river, the barge constantly grounded on shoals, our pilot, Joe, 

 knowing nothing of the upper part of the river. We had to strip our clothes off 

 constantly and jump overboard to shove the boat over the shallows, and at last stuck 



