CAUSES OF BAU’S SUPREMACY. 79 
having, amongst other great acts of kindness conferred, 
never failed to supply me in this land of pork and yams 
with bread, cakes, and other acceptable presents when- 
ever I came in that neighbourhood. 
Bau is said to own its present superiority to the for- 
tunate accident of having been the first familiar with 
the use of fire-arms. Charles Savage, a Swede, intro 
duced it about the beginning of this century. But it 
was not only to this accident that Bau is indebted to 
its permanent ascendency. Like England, but on a 
lilliputian scale, it is a great naval power, able to send 
its fleets of canoes to any part rebelling against its 
authority, or refusing to discharge its annual tribute. 
The Bauans are a fine race, nearly all members of noble 
families or gentlefolks. Most of them are tall, well- 
proportioned, and often with a handsome cast of coun- 
tenance. In Fiji, as in fact all over the South Sea, a 
man is estimated by the height .of his body, and little 
men are regarded with contempt. Their tall figures prove 
a great advantage to the Bauans. This general con- 
tempt for small men arises from the fact, that through- 
out Polynesia the chiefs and upper classes are taller 
than the lower orders, and with a finer physical they 
combine a greater mental development. ‘They are in 
every respect superior to the people whom they rule. 
They are as genuine an aristocracy as ever existed in 
any country. They know every plant, animal, rock, 
river, and mountain; are familiar with their history, 
legends, and traditions; and strict in observing every 
point of their complicated etiquette. They swim, row, 
sail, shoot, and fight better than the common people, and 
