232 A MISSION TO VITI. 
it sounds as pleasing as Spanish or Italian. They are 
certainly not an idle people, and though not working 
like our own labourers, from six to six, they are great 
cultivators of the soil, skilful fishermen, and able builders 
and managers of canoes. Far from living under an ab- 
solute despotism, as is erroneously supposed, all the dif- 
ferent States of which Fiji is composed have institutions 
hallowed by age and tradition, fundamentally almost 
identical with those cherished by the most advanced 
nations. The real power of the State resides in the 
landholders or gentry, who, at the death of a ruler, pro- 
ceed to elect a new one in his stead from amongst the 
members of the royal family. Generally the son, but 
not unfrequently the brother, or even a more distant re- 
lation of the deceased, is elevated to the chieftainship, 
and loyally supported in his dignity as long as he car- 
ries out the policy of those who have set him up. If 
this ‘“‘ House of Commons,” as by a stretch of language 
it may be called, finds its wishes and aims disregarded, 
the members avail themselves of the privilege of re- 
fusing supplies, which, in the total absence of money, 
consist in yams, taro, pigs, fowls, native cloth, canoes 
(the naval estimates!), and all the other requirements 
of a great Fijian establishment. The intractable chief 
who has attempted to play the despot is thus generally 
brought to a proper sense of his condition. Of course, 
chiefs who, by strong family connections, can afford to 
set the “Commons” at defiance, will occasionally do so ; 
then new expedients have to be resorted to, and the 
trial of strength which follows provides one of the ele- 
ments of political activity. Europeans might fancy that 
a barbarous people would readily adopt the more simple 
