14 A MISSION TO VITI. 
around my abode, instead of rushing at once to distant 
parts, where no doubt fine treasures may be expected. 
The first day I shall probably not get any plants save 
the most common weeds, and most likely not venture 
out of sight of head-quarters. But after I have collected 
the objects with which under any circumstances I must 
become familiar, and would most likely fancy I had in 
my collection, because they were so common, I am able 
on the second and third day to venture a good deal 
further, and when at last I make more distant excursions, 
Tam at least certain that in bringing home anything, I 
am not carrying coals to Newcastle or owls to Athens. 
The boys were quite indefatigable in assisting me to 
collect, and telling me the different local names of the 
plants. A great number of these names I was already 
acquainted with, having learnt them from the Fijian 
dictionary, and it did not take many weeks before I 
was familiar with all the vernacular nomenclature of 
the most generally diffused organized beings. ‘This feat 
the natives could never comprehend. They thought it 
strange that at a time when my whole knowledge of 
Fijian amounted to little more than yes or no, and a 
few sentences absolutely forced upon me, I should be 
able to pronounce the names of almost anything they 
held up to my admiring gaze. The Lakeban boys also 
took us to a ravine, where some years ago Dr. Harvey, 
of Trinity College, Dublin, had collected a fine fern 
(Dipteris Horsfieldii, J. Smith), which has magnificent 
fan-shaped leaves, when growing in favourable situa- 
tions, from eight to ten feet high, and four feet across. 
The plant is found in all parts of Fiji, New Caledonia, 
a4¢ 
