240 A MISSION TO VITI. 
parts of Fiji, Lakeba, and the adjacent islands, being 
the most accessible from their proximity to Tonga, were 
those chiefly visited; and as it took considerable time to 
construct the larger canoes, a strong influx of Tonguese 
blood was soon perceptible in the population of those 
districts. Not unfrequently it happened that parties 
going or coming were drifted by the prevailing winds 
on the shores of Kadavu, and hence the mixed race in- 
habiting that fine island is accounted for. Lakeba and 
Cakaudrove were formerly intimately connected, and 
the latter being the high-road to Bua, the Tonguese 
seem to have become introduced to the locality, where, 
above all others, the famous Sandal-wood (Yasi), so 
highly valued both in Tonga and Samoa for scenting 
cocoa-nut oil, grew in abundance.* They were not long 
before they made regular trading voyages to Bua, bring- 
ing with them printed tapa, fine mats, and large pearl- 
shells, skilfully inlaid with pieces of whales’-teeth. Hav- 
ing often to wait two or three months before a cargo 
of sandal-wood could be got ready, a close intimacy 
naturally sprang up between the trading parties, inter- 
marriages took place, and thus another district received 
a mixed population. 
Up to this period the Tonguese had been peaceful 
traders, glad to exchange their manufactures for na- 
tural products denied to their own islands. Gradually 
they adopted a different line of policy. Being men of 
athletic frames, of courage and daring, they were often 
* Cakaudrove (= Thakaundrove) has been corrupted by the Tonguese 
into “ Tacownove,” and in some old charts is applied to the whole of Va- 
nua Levu. 
