94 
FROM SYDNEY TO TORRES STRAIT. 
native Fijians. The latter is surrounded by a wall built up of loose stones, is flanked on one 
side by a rivulet, on the other by the sea, and on the land side by an inaccessible rock, 
the site having evidently been chosen for its defensive capabilities. During our stay we paid 
a visit to a German settler, who had founded a home in one of the palm groves which descend 
LEVUKA, FIJI ISLANDS. 
of Fijian botany and zoology, with that genial enthusiasm so characteristic of his nation. 
Among the guests in the parlour was a fine young Fijian in his native dress, or rather 
undress. I wondered what our exquisites at home would have said at the sight of such a 
dark-skinned Adonis in a drawing-room. Yet, although he had not been adorned by a 
tailor of Paris or London, his manner and conduct were beyond reproach. Our German 
host lived on the best of terms with a neighbouring notable, the chief of Ovalau, 
to whom we were introduced. No man bred in the most polished 
Court of Europe could have surpassed the perfect courtesy and 
quiet dignified bearing with which that chief received us and 
presented to us the members of his household. His hair was 
tinged with grey, but in stature and features he was a model 
for the sculptor a dusky Farnese Hercules. After the return of 
the Challenger to England, King Cakobau made a voyage to 
Sydney, and arrangements—fully made known in the public press 
having been happily completed, Fiji became an appanage of the 
British Crown, and its former ruler joined the company of “ monarchs 
retired from business.” 
In Fiji, as elsewhere, a decided difference may be observed between the inland and the 
coast tribes, the former representing the remnants of an earlier population, while the latter 
are generally a mixture of the aboriginal race with the invaders from neighbouring countries 
and islands. Thus the native from the hills of Viti Levu, with his shock of woolly hair 
seems to belong to the race which originally took possession of all that region of the 
Western Pacific, of which the continent of Papua or New Guinea may be considered as the 
