36 A MISSION TO VITI. 
turned to their former religion, the principal features 
of which seem to be a belief in a Supreme Being, and 
the worship of ancestors. The French have been more 
successful in the neighbouring island of Fotuna, where 
the Roman Catholic priests established a flourishing 
mission. . 
The Rotuma men can nearly all speak a little En- 
glish; they are a good-looking people, with as light a 
skin as the Tonguese, rich black, often curly, hair, worn 
very long, and regular, frequently Jewish, features. The 
latter peculiarity has been remarked by all who have 
visited Rotuma, and amongst the men working on the 
Somosomo estate there was one who bore the nickname 
of ‘“ Moses,” in consequence of his undeniable resem- 
blance to an unadulterated Hebrew. They circumcise, 
tattoo around the loins, and perforate the left ear, into 
which they put a gay flower, or the rolled up leaf of 
the Dracena terminalis. The Rotuma men are a hard- 
working set, and, if Fiji should become a European 
colony, their island will be likely to supply a good 
number of useful hands. I have seen them pull an oar 
all day long under a broiling tropical sun, or work away 
at the mill and oil-presses, without ever losing their 
good temper or complaining. True, in Somosomo they 
were well fed, and had as much as they liked to eat of 
yam, pork, or fish. Hardly a day elapsed without a pig 
being clubbed for their especial benefit. One of them 
invariably attended to the cooking, not only for the men 
but also for us. He gloried in the name of Koytoo, and 
was the youngest and _ best-looking of the lot, with rich 
curly hair, and a figure as symmetrically formed as a 
