OVALAU. 147 



as these ; I can't make it out.' The costume of these divi- 

 nities was an addition of his own.^ Another salesman 

 showed me a model of a buri, or Fijian temple, made entirely 

 of sinnet, for which he would not take less than four guineas ; 

 two specimens of these buris formed part of my collection.^ 



In the midst of a crowd which had gathered on the shore, 

 on account of our appearance in port, I was very much sur- 

 prised to see two Avhite women, and to hear them speak 

 French. One of them, an English woman, was the school- 

 mistress, who had lived in France from six to seven years, 

 the wife of a man that deserted her after the birth of 

 a daughter married in the island to a Mr. Moakler, the owner 

 of an estate on which he intends cultivating coffee. The 

 other was a very nice-looking French woman from Mont- 

 pellier, the wife of Dr. Graaffe, a German naturalist, in the 

 employ of the house of Godefroy of Hamburg, then absent, 

 having accompanied Captain Jones in his exploiting visit to 

 Yiti-Levu. Madame Graaffe came with the greater part of 

 the foreigners living in the island to pay a visit to the Com- 

 modore. On this occasion she requested to be introduced 

 into my luorkshop ; and there every thing she did and said 

 proved to me that she Avas at least the assistant naturalist of 



' Williams, 'Fiji and tlie Fijians,' vol. i. p. 177, speaks of 'grim, 

 immodest representations of tlie human figui-e about eighteen inches 

 long, which are used on the larger islands to terrify the children into 

 quietness.' My friend's goddesses may have belonged to this category. 

 The probabihty is, that all such images have relation to that worship 

 of the principle of generation everywhere diffused. 



^ One of them has been presented to the Christy Museum. 



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