“TOL VITI.” 75 
pact nation than they do at present. Of course, I am 
aware the title “ Tui Viti” has been revived only lately ; 
owing, it is stated, to a letter which General Miller, 
formerly H. B. M. Consul-General at the Hawaiian, or 
Sandwich Islands, addressed to “Tui Viti,” and which 
Cakobau, as the most powerful chief of the leading 
state, thought it nght to open. But the title “Tui 
Viti” occurs in many ancient legends current in 
various groups of Polynesia, and could scarcely have 
originated with such close neighbours, who would 
rather be apt to detract than to magnify the power of a 
foreign nation already far above them in the exercise 
of various useful arts and manufactures. Old traditions 
further state the Fijians to have been an unwarlike 
people, until they had established a more intimate and 
frequent intercourse with the light-coloured races of 
the eastern groups, when sanguinary intratribal quarrels 
became almost their normal condition. These traditions 
would be favourable to the existence of a powerful mo- 
narchy in Fiji, such as legendary evidence represents it 
as being at one time, and also its ultimate extinction 
and remoulding by the growing power of petty chiefs, 
skilful in new practices of war acquired whilst abroad. 
The hypothesis advanced derives additional strength from 
the fact of all Fijians, though scattered over a group of 
more than two hundred different islands, speaking one 
language, having a powerfully developed sense of nation- 
ality, and feeling as one people. No ancient Roman 
could have pronounced the words “ Civis Romanus sum” 
with greater pride or dignity than a modern Fijian calls 
himself a “ Kai Viti,” a Fijian. We can scarcely con- 
