COMMERCIAL ENTERPRISE. 71 
no reefs, this would be an impossibility. Suva Point 
is a gently undulated country, free from swamps, and 
about three miles wide or thereabout at the base. It 
has on one side Suva Bay, on the other Laucala (= Lau- 
thala) Bay; the latter first surveyed by Sir Edward 
Belcher,* and offering many conveniences. The point 
itself is open to the prevailing winds; it is thinly tim- 
bered with bread-fruit, cocoa-nut, dawa, and other trees 
of no great growth, and thus requires but little clearing. 
A few days after my arrival at Lado, we were grati- 
fied by a visit from Mr. Cesar Godeffroy, of Hamburg, 
who had been several years in the South Sea es- 
tablishing a direct trade with Germany, and planting 
agencies in the most important groups. Messrs. Go- 
deffroy and Co. are the first great house who have 
entered this comparatively new field of commercial en- 
terprise, and there is every reason to believe their ope- 
rations successful. There is a great market in the 
South Seas, but only those who have an intimate ac- 
quaintance with the articles required should ever be 
tempted to enter it. Even the comparatively few things 
I took out for barter taught me the value of inquiring 
most minutely into the exact nature of the articles here 
current. Knives with white handles were rejected or 
but slightly esteemed, though their blades were even 
better than those having black ones, and so with every- 
thing else. 
Judging from the crowds of boats and canoes daily 
arriving at Lado—for every one here has either the one 
* Rewa Roads are called in the Admiralty Chart Nukulau Harbour; the 
special chart published embraces the surveys of Sir E. Belcher. 
