GENERAL ACCOUNT HEDLEY. 61 



many as forty blocks, others but a single piece of land. In the 

 past overtures for selling or leasing the coconut lands to copra 

 traders were steadfastly resisted by the natives, and under 

 British rule the title is inalienably vested*" in them. Parents 

 sometimes divide their estate to provide for their married chil- 

 dren. Lands pass by will on the owner's death ; instances have 

 occurred where relatives have been cut off with the proverbial 

 shilling, and being left to starve have been supported by public 

 charity. 



A space of about ten or twelve acres south of the Mangrove 

 Swamp is occupied by the gardens, which in former times, when 

 the population was more numerous, covered a larger area. The 

 gardens are in excavations six or eight feet deep, the object of 

 excavation being to reach the level of permanent swamp. At 

 Nukulailai, where I saw the cultivation ground being enlarged, 

 the natives were digging down ten or twelve feet. The gardens 

 are irregularly divided into blocks of a couple of acres or more 

 by embankments, which represent the original level of the land, 

 and are three or four yards in breadth. These serve as paths, 

 and are usually planted with Artocarpus, Thespesia, or Hibiscus. 



Each family has at least one plot of garden land, and most 

 have more, a plot may be as small as ten paces square. The 

 plots of one owner are not necessarily contiguous, nor are the 

 lands of various owners divided from each other by any boundary 

 visible to a stranger. 



The wooden shovel or turtle shell hoe of the past is now 

 replaced by metal bladed spades, and these are their only agri- 

 cultural implement. Like all semi-civilised people the Ellice 

 Islanders keep their gardens beautifully free from weeds. An 

 analysis of the soil from one of their gardens by my colleague, 

 Dr. Oooksey, follows in another Section. The appearance of 

 phosphate of lime I am unable to account for. The only system 

 of manuring I observed was that of twisting palm leaves in a 

 wreath, and laying them around the roots of the brokka, in a 

 basin thus made were buried basketfuls of leaves of various 

 bush trees gathered by the women, f 



The staple vegetable food of the Funafuti Islanders is furnished 

 by the Alocasia indica, Schott, known to them as " brokka."| 

 It is said to require from six to eight years to reach maturity, 



* By Proclamation in The Fiji Royal Gazette, 5th Sept., 1894. 



t Cultivation on Funafuti is also described by Whitmee A Missionaiy 

 Cruise, 1871, p. 12. 



J In the Hervey Islands (Gill The South Pacific and New Guinea, 

 1892, p. 10) it is called " kape." Some writers refer to it as Puraka. 

 Guppy (Trans. Vic. Inst., 1896) quotes numerous other names from the 

 Pacific and Indian Ocean. 



