42 A MISSION TO VITI. 
I found only partially true; indeed, I have never been 
in a country where it is more difficult to arrive at real 
facts than Fiji. To say nothing about those who make 
it a point to diffuse absolute untruths, nearly everybody 
seems to rejoice in overstating a case or giving a most 
partial version of it; and it requires no slight discrimi- 
nation to keep on good terms with those with whom 
one wishes to stand well, so fearfully rampant is the 
gossip. The most outrageous stories were unblushingly 
circulated about the different consuls and missionaries ; 
and sometimes I felt hot and cold, while having to be 
an unwilling listener to scandal of this description. 
People in civilized countries do not know how much they 
owe to the laws that protect them, at least against the 
grossest libels. Talk of village scandal, it is nothing to 
it. Of course, in a society of whites so limited, this 
state of affairs might be expected, but a new feature in 
the history of gossip is that all the tittle-tattle of the 
other groups of the Pacific was dealt out as so many 
delicious morsels in Fiji. The doings of known per- 
sonages in Tahiti, Samoa, and Tonga were discussed 
with avidity. Fancy, we in Europe troubling ourselves 
with the small talk of places more than a thousand 
miles distant. 
Before the arrival of the British consul, several of 
these small island schooners carried on a profitable traf- 
fic in human beings. They used to go to the large 
islands, and purchase young women, for whom from five 
to ten dollars in barter were usually given. These women 
were sold again to whites in other parts of the group, 
often for fifty dollars each. Several women were pointed 
