The National Geographic Magazine 



and, more conspicuous than any, the 

 Fijians themselves — tall, magnificently 

 built people of a color between coffee and 

 bronze, with stiff, brush-like hair, trained 

 into a high "pompadour," clean shirts 

 and smart short cotton kilts, and a general 

 aspect of well-groomed neatness. They 

 do not look at all like "savages" and, 

 ao'ain, thev have not the keen, intellectual 

 expression of the Indians or the easy 

 amiability of the Samoan type of coun- 

 tenance. They are partly Melanesian, 

 partly Polynesian in type, and they form, 

 it is quite evident, the connecting link be- 

 tween Eastern and Western Pacific. 



East of Fiji, life is one long, lotus- 

 eating dream, stirred only by occasional 

 parties of pleasure, feasting, love-making, 

 dancing, and a very little gardening work. 

 Music is the soul of the people, beauty 

 of face and movement is more the rule 

 than the exception, and friendliness to 

 strangers is carried almost to excess. 

 Westward of the Fijis lie the dark, 

 wicked, cannibal groups of the Solo- 

 mons, Banks, and New Hebrides, where 

 life is more like a nightmare than a 

 dream; murder stalks openly in broad 

 daylight, people are nearer to monkeys 

 than human beings in aspect, and music 

 and dancing are little practiced and in 

 the rudest possible state. 



In Fiji itself the nameless, dreamy 

 charm of the eastern islands is not; but 

 the gloom, the fevers, the repulsive people 

 of the west are absent also. Life is 

 rather a serious matter for the Fijian, on 

 the whole ; he is kept in order by his 

 chiefs and by the British government, 

 and has to get through enough work in 

 a year to pay his taxes ; also, if the sup- 

 ply of volunteers runs short, he is liable 

 to be forcibly recruited for the armed 

 native constabulary, and this is a fate that 

 oppresses him a good deal — until he has 

 accustomed himself to the discipline of 

 the force, when he generally makes an 

 excellent soldier. But, all in all, he has 

 a pleasant time, in a pleasant, productive 

 climate, and is a very pleasant person 

 himself, hospitable in the highest degree, 

 honest, good-natured, and clever with 



his hands, though of a less highly intel- 

 lectual type than the Tongan or the 

 Samoan. 



A MARVELLOUS TRANSFORMATION 



The whole penal apparatus is one 

 gigantic jest, and is regarded as such by 

 most of the whites and not a few of the 

 natives. 



To begin with, there is hardly any real 

 crime, what there is being furnished 

 chiefly by the Indian laborers employed 

 on the estates of the Colonial Sugar Re- 

 fining Company. The Fijians them- 

 selves, though less than two generations 

 removed from the wild and wicked days 

 of the Thakombau reign, are an ex- 

 tremely peaceable and good-natured 

 people. In the fifties and sixties, and 

 even later, murder, torture, and cannibal- 

 ism were the chief diversions of a Fijian's 

 life, and the power of working one's 

 self into a more violent and unrestrained 

 fit of rage than any one else of one's 

 acquaintance was an elegant and 

 much-sought-after accomplishment. This 

 change, effected largely by the work of 

 the missionaries, but also by the civiliz- 

 ing influences of the British government 

 and of planters and traders innumerable, 

 is most notable. Nothing can be more 

 amiable and good-natured than the Fijian 

 of today; no colored citizen in all the 

 circle of the British colonies is less in- 

 clined to crime. 



Yanggona (the "kava" of the eastern 

 Pacific) is the universal drink of Fiji. 

 It is the hard, woody root of a handsome 

 bush (the Piper methysticum) which 

 grows freely in the mountains. The 

 Fijians prepare the root by grating or 

 pounding, pour water over the pounded 

 mass, and strain it through a wisp of 

 bark fiber. The resulting drink looks 

 like muddy water and tastes much the 

 same, with a flavor of pepper and salt 

 added. One soon gets to like it, however, 

 and drunk in moderation it is extremely 

 refreshing and thirst-quenching. The 

 Fijians do not drink moderately, I re- 

 gret to say; they often sit up all night 

 over their yanggona, drinking until they 



