80 A MISSION TO VITI. 
excel in house and canoe building. Thus they keep their 
place amongst a people not able to fall back upon dress 
and finery to lend distinction to rank, dignity to person. 
We were desirous of pushing on early the next morn- 
ing, but as the tide did not suit, we ran over to Viwa, 
a small island close to Bau, where a permanent print- 
ing-press has been established in the first stone house 
ever built in the group. The greater portion of the 
Fijian Bible has been printed at this establishment ; 
and the edition, now exhausted, is very much esteemed 
by the natives. A Fijian and English Dictionary, com- 
posed by D. Hazelwood, is another great work pro- 
duced here in 1850. This Dictionary is full of a mass 
of reliable information, and must be regarded as the 
best contribution the Fijian missionaries have made 
to science. Ethnologists, geographers, and naturalists, 
and philologists as a matter of course, will find here 
facts and observations not met with elsewhere.* Viwa 
is full of fruit-trees, and altogether a charming spot. 
The cocoanut palm seems to be the only plant that 
does not flourish, After having attained a certain 
height it begins to wither—the foliage looking as if boil- 
ing water had been poured over it. 
We found Messrs. Martin and Baker, the two gentle- 
men connected with the mission of this place, absent,— 
they having gone to look for an eligible new station on 
Vanua Levu. But their wives were at home, and glad 
to see us safe. Through telescopes they had watched 
our boat on the previous evening, as long as daylight 
* I believe Messrs. Triibner and Co., Paternoster Row, London, have 
still a few copies of this publication on hand. 
