78 Sandal-Wood and its Commercial Importance. 



Until the middle of the last century sandal was exclusively 

 obtained from the East Indies, but after Captain Cook and his 

 successors had made Europeans familiar with the chief features 

 of the South Sea, enterprising traders went in search of the 

 wood amongst the innumerable islands scattered over the 

 broad Pacific like stars on the firmament. One of the first 

 groups visited, chiefly by vessels from Manila, was Fiji or Yiti. 

 The sandal-wood of that group, confined to Bua bay on Vanua 

 Levu, and derived from Santalum Yasi, a middle-sized tree, 

 with lanceolate leaves, white ultimately brown flowers, and a 

 fruit resembling a black currant, had long been famous in 

 those waters, and induced the Tonga islanders to undertake 

 regular trading voyages to the place where it grew, and even 

 attempt to transplant the tree to Tonga; where, though it 

 vegetated, the wood was found to be almost without scent. 

 We are indebted to Mariner for an insight into this early 

 intercourse. He tells us of a Tongan chief who had been 

 abroad for fourteen years, and originally set out on a sandal- 

 wood expedition to Fiji. Before iron tools and implements 

 came in use, the Tonguese paid in bark- cloth, the sting of 

 a fish used for spears, sail-mats, plats, and a rare ornamental 

 shell peculiar to Vavau. They passed on portions of the 

 wood to the Samoans, who, in common with themselves and 

 the Fijian s, grated the sandal-wood on the mushroom coral 

 (Funyia) and used it for perfuming the cocoa-nut oil, so exten- 

 sively applied by Polynesians for greasing their naked bodies. 

 The white traders who first ventured to Fiji seem to have 

 proceeded with great caution, and never commenced transact- 

 ing business until chiefs of rank had been placed on board as 

 hostages. Notwithstanding, several collisions between natives 

 and whites are recorded. So great was the demand for the 

 wood in both the Chinese and Polynesian markets that, about 

 18 10, there was scarcely euough left for home consumption. 

 In is ID the United States Exploring Expedition with difficulty 

 obtained a few specimens for the herbarium, and to save the 

 tree from utter extinction the Rev. Mr. Williams planted one 

 in the gardens of the Bua mission station, which enabled me to 

 describe it botanicaUy. At present fancy prices are readily 

 given* for the little sandal-wood now and then turning up, and a 

 log about six feet long, presented to me in I860, was tliought 

 a valuable </\\'\ by my native attendants. 



About 1778 the attention <»f the commercial world was first 

 drawn to tin 1 existence of sandal-wood in the Hawaiian or 

 Sandwich Island-, and a Captain Kendrick, of a Boston brig, is 

 known to have been the first who left two men on Kauai to 

 Contract for several cargoes. The unlives term it ff Lau ala" 

 (t. 6., fragrant wood) or Iliahi, and distinguish two different 



