IN SUVA AND MBAU

Generally speaking, the islands, both coral and volcanic, lying east of the 180th Meridian in the Pacific are almost perfectly healthy, while those to the west of it incline to the breeding of a number of more or less virulent forms of malarial fevers, a circumstance principally due to the fact that the eastern islands, as a rule, have better natural drainage and are more exposed to the full sweep of the Trade-wind. The big island of Viti Levu, the seat of British government in Fiji, is not an exception to this rule. It is beautiful in spots, even attaining to real scenic grandeur among the high mountains of the interior; but its coast is a monotonous succession of intricate barrier reefs and mangrove swamps. Suva is, perhaps, the best location available for a capital under the circumstances, but the town in the hands of almost any other nation than the British would be a fearful pest-hole. As it is, strict attention to drainage and sanitation has made it comparatively healthy, though to no such degree as any of the capitals east of the dividing meridian.

Fiji is the meeting and mingling point—the melting-pot—of the two diverse races of the eastern and western islands of the South Pacific. While probably of the same ethnic origin, the race which inhabits the Hawaiian, Marquesan, Society, Tonga, Friendly, Samoan, and other groups of the eastern division of the South Seas—the pure Polynesian—is as different, mentally and physically, from the Melanesian or Papuan type of the New Hebrides, Solomons, New Britains and New Guinea as the Mongolian is from the Ethiopian. Each race seems to reflect the physical environment in which it has been cradled. The Polynesian—especially where he has been little subject to Caucasian influence, as in Samoa—is as bright, attractive and as fair to look upon as the islands of enchantment that give him birth. The Melanesian—kinky-haired, black of skin, sullen and fierce of disposition—is the incarnation of the fever-haunted mangrove glades through which he leads his murderous forays. The Fijian, in whose veins courses the blood of the two races, has certain of the physical and mental qualities of both. Generally speaking, however, he seems to have bred truer to his sinister Papuan forbears than to the lightsome Polynesian. Magnificent physical specimen, clever builder and brave warrior that he is, there is little in the Fijian of the frank, kindly, open-heartedness which draws one so irresistibly under the spell of the pure Polynesian. The enchantment and the glamour of the South Seas—how often those words are on one's tongue in Samoa and Tahiti!—like their salubrity, are confined to the east of the "Line of Night and Day." Absorbingly interesting are the islands and the natives of the western groups, but their appeal is to the head, not to the heart.

Forty years ago the Fijis were in a completer state of savagery than are the New Hebrides and Solomons today. Every village was at war with its neighbour, the victims falling in the tribal fights invariably being eaten; war canoes were launched over human bodies as rollers, a man's skull was placed at the base of every post of a new temple, while a custom—not unlike the East Indian one of suttee—was responsible for the strangling of all of a dead chief's widows to set their spirits free to accompany him on his journey. Every party landing from foreign ships had been attacked from the time of the early navigators. Among those thus set upon were a number of American sailors who were killed and eaten early in the last century, this incident being responsible for the visit of the first Fijian to the United States, the hardened old cannibal, Vendovi, who was brought by the corvette, Vincennes, to Hampton Roads to stand trial for inciting the offence.

Most of the first missionaries who ventured into Fiji also went into the cooking pots, and it was not until the early 7O's that the Wesleyans, whose nerve must have equalled their faith, became sufficiently well established to get the ear of King Thakambau. The conversion of this powerful ruler soon followed, the first and most important result of which being the ceding of the group—he had offered it to the United States in 1869—to Great Britain. As a token of his fealty Thakambau sent to Queen Victoria his favourite war club, hitherto,as he naÏvely put it, "the only law in Fiji." This club, with the monarch's great kava bowl, is preserved in the British Museum.

The Christianization and pacification of the Fijis went on side by side, and within two decades there was a mission and a missionary in every village of the group, while a white man's life was as safe in the wilds of Vita Levu or Taviuni as in Sydney or London. For the last twenty years the end of the missionaries' endeavour has been to bring the somewhat precariously converted natives to a fuller comprehension of the meaning of Christianity, while the government has built roads, established a large and efficient native police force and encouraged agriculture to such good effect that Fiji ranks second only to Hawaii among the Pacific islands as a sugar producer and also figures extensively as an exporter of copra and fruit.

Forty years ago the Fijis were in a complete state of
savagery

A Fijian head hunting canoe

The transformation of the Fijis from cannibalism to a condition of peacefulness and prosperity has been one of the most striking achievements of its kind in the history of colonial endeavour. Just how much of the credit is due to the missionary and how much to that other quiet, unassuming bearer of the "White Man's Burden," the British official, it would be hard to determine. Popularly, on account of the spectacular nature of his early campaigns which culminated in the conversion of the terrible Thakambau, the honours are given to the missionary, which, like most popular verdicts, is not quite fair.

To the British colonial official—to any colonial official of the right stamp—the patient coaxing of the

"new-caught sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child"

out of the darkness of their "loved Egyptian Night" is all in the day's work. His maintenance in the field, however, is not dependent upon funds raised by subscription, as in the case of the missionary, and an appeal to popular sympathy is, therefore, unnecessary. For the missionary, to whom the awakening of interest in his successes means more money to carry on his work, publicity is only good business. It is for this reason that the missionary, rather than the no less deserving official, is associated in the popular mind with the reclamation of Fiji. There is honour enough, and to spare, for both workers of the wonder which has been wrought; but it is meet that the quiet, earnest, intelligent efforts of the government official should not be overlooked.

The Fijian is too much of a Polynesian to take kindly to work under the new rÉgime, so that, with 100,000 or more of him sitting idly about in the shade of the coco palms, it has been necessary to bring the plantation labour from the New Hebrides, Solomons, New Guinea and even British India. At first the blacks of the westerly islands, recruited by more or less responsible agents who induced them to contract to work for a term of years at so much a month, were the mainstay of the plantations, but for the last twenty years the industrious Hindu coolie, indentured at a wage equivalent to from four to seven dollars a month, has been employed almost exclusively. The passing of the Melanesian black on the plantations of Fiji and Australia marks the finish of one of the most picturesque, if also one of the cruelest, traffics in the history of the South Pacific, that of "black-birding" or labour-recruiting.

Although the Insular Government makes a great point of maintaining all the ancient tribal observances in its relations with the Fijians, not many of the old customs and ceremonies have survived. Internecine wars are, of course, things of the past, and even when a fight is started up between a couple of mountain villages, it is the musket and not the war club that decides with which party the honours shall rest. The meke-meke or dance—especially that of the women—has not had the vitality to survive the hostility of the missionaries, white and black, though on great occasions, such as the wedding of a chief or a reception to the Governor, some of the ancient war measures are trod by a squad of men. It is a good deal as I heard the captain of a British cruiser on the Australian station put it—"The Fijian has altered scarcely less than the Tahitian under his contact with the white man; only with the latter it has been a case of 'too much French official,' and with the former 'too much missionary.'"

However, the Fijian stood in need of a good deal of making over before his islands were safe for a white man to live in, and even if most of his picturesqueness departed with his deviltry, the balance is still on the right side of the ledger and in favour of the missionary.

The Fijian woman has neither the good looks, the good manners nor the good nature of her Samoan or Tahitian sister. Her lack of amenity is largely due to the fact that her lord and master, in his treatment of her, is more of a Papuan or African than a Polynesian. Such work as is done in the village—mostly fishing and a little crude cultivation—falls to the lot of the women, probably as a survival of the days when the men spent all of their waking hours engaging in or repelling forays. She is always kept in the background when visitors are present and, probably as a consequence of generations of restraint, has none of the natural graces of the woman of pure Polynesian stock.

The suppression of the Fijian woman is especially remarkable in the light of the fact that, through some caprice of Nature, males considerably outnumber females in the group, a condition which, in almost every other similar instance on record, has enhanced the power and prestige of the latter sex. Why it has failed to do so in Fiji is as unexplicable as the condition itself—the predominance in numbers of men in a group of islands which has been one of the worst hot-beds of internecine warfare the world has ever known.

This excess of men in Fiji—the fact that there are not enough women to "go round"—proved one of the most troublesome factors in the pacification of the islands, and in keeping them quiet once that pacification was accomplished. A young warrior without a wife, and with no prospect of getting one save in a foray, is the equal as an inciter of trouble of a deposed Latin American president. Such a one had no wife to lose in an intertribal war, while there was always a chance that he might emerge from such a struggle in full, if transient, possession of that supreme desideratum. The enlistment of many of these restless "left-overs" in the "A. N. C.," the Armed Native Constabulary, has been the best expedient possible under the circumstances. A gun and uniform do not take the place of a wife, however (though, as has been proven, they often are the short cuts to getting one at the expense of some one else), and the problem is going to be a troublesome one until nature equalizes the disparity of sexes by increasing the birth rate of girls, or an interval of intertribal wars supervenes to cut down the excess of men.

The Fijians are less expert in the building and handling of boats than the Samoans, The craft most favoured is of the catamaran type, consisting of two canoes joined by a platform, or occasionally, a single canoe with a platform built on the outrigger. These affairs, while comparatively seaworthy, are of little use for sailing and very difficult to paddle with any speed. The whaleboat, so common in Samoa, is rarely seen in Fiji. Most of the interisland voyages are undertaken in clumsy sloops, though occasional runs with the wind are made with the primitive mat-sailed catamarans.

There is not much to please the eye about Suva harbour, but it is deep and safe, and the loss of shipping there in hurricanes rarely proves so complete as in Tahiti or Samoa. The storm through which Lurline passed en voyage from Samoa destroyed several houses in the town and wrought great damage on the outlying plantations, but the loss in the harbour was limited to a few carelessly-moored native sloops which were piled up on the beach. Suva, both on land and water, is far better prepared than the island ports to the east to meet these heavy blows, nearly all of the houses being strongly guyed with steel cables, while numerous securely anchored buoys in the bay give shipping a fair chance to ride out the storms in safety.

Socially, Suva is more developed than the French or other South Pacific island capitals, and one dropping in for afternoon tea at the Fiji Club or Government House might easily imagine himself in Cape Town, Hongkong, Colombo, or one of a dozen other outposts of the British Empire. The Briton's first move in colonization is to make his seat of government a bit of old England; to say that he has succeeded in Suva means much, both as to the magnitude of the work accomplished as well as to the attractiveness of the life there.

Sir H. M. Jackson, K.C.M.G., the Governor of Fiji, had left for his new post in Trinidad shortly before our arrival in Suva, the place being temporarily filled by the Chief Justice, Sir Charles Major, by whom we were pleasantly entertained. Colonel Leslie Brown, the American Consular Agent, proved a most agreeable gentleman, as did also his business partner, the Honourable Arthur Joske, to both of whom we were indebted for much kindness.

H.M.S. Clio, Captain Wilkins, arrived in Suva during our stay and proved good company for Lurline. This smart little gunboat was in the South Pacific on what appeared to be a sort of roving commission, the principal object of which seemed to be the blowing up of a troublesome rock that was somewhat indefinitely located off to the northeast. At one of our dinner parties Captain Wilkins challenged us to sail a cutter from Lurline against that of the Clio's. The Commodore promptly accepted, and the race was contested on the first of July. Well handled by Victor and Gus, our boat secured a good lead on the run to the buoy at the outer reef, but in the beat home, owing to the faulty adjustment of a detachable keel borrowed from Clio for the occasion, made heavy leeway, lost all she had gained, and finished a poor second.

I spent most of our stay in Fiji on a visit to Mbau, the ancient native capital, a guest of the distinguished Roku Kandavu Levu. The trip by launch, horseback and canoe is a somewhat arduous one, but well worth the trouble, as this little island is one of the most picturesque and historic spots in the South Pacific. It was here that the great King Thakambau, who ceded the group to the British, made his headquarters, and the beautiful village still contains many evidences of its former greatness. Thakambau's great war canoe, a huge double dugout over a hundred feet in length, its shattered sides carefully protected from the ravages of the elements by a regularly-renewed shed of palm leaves, is still religiously preserved on the leeward beach. It is this canoe which history records was, whenever possible, launched over live human bodies as rollers, one division of the king's army being kept continually on the foray to provide the wherewithal. The body of the king, who died in 1883 after enjoying an annual pension of fifteen hundred pounds for a decade or more, rests under a tall shaft of marble on the top of a hill in the centre of the little island and, not unfittingly, in the shade of the Wesleyan mission church.

"Lurline's cutter finished a poor second"

"Thakambau's great war canoe, over a hundred feet in length, formerly
launched over human bodies"

The Roku Kandavu Levu, a most attractive young man whom I saw more of later in Suva, left on a journey up the Rewa on the evening of my arrival, but not, however, before telling the Mbuli or headman to give me the "freedom of the city" and turning me over to a couple of young British madcaps, who had been his guests for a fortnight, with instructions to "keep the ball rolling." I could not have fallen into better hands. The Honourable Bertie W——, whom I have since learned has only one invalid brother between himself and the succession to a baronetcy, had been sent to the Antipodes by his noble father because he had allowed the charms of a young lady of the Gaiety chorus to interfere with his pursuit of knowledge at Cambridge. A month of good behaviour in Sydney was being rewarded by a tour of Fiji, on which was officiating as cicerone young Mr. Tom B——, the son of a prominent attorney of Suva, and a lad after the Honourable Bertie's own heart.

These two spirited youngsters—both were under twenty—had started out from Suva to "study native life at first hand" in the wilds of the interior of Vita Levu, but the Roku Kandavu Levu, who could not let himself miss the chance for practice with two crack cricketers go by—he had been the best bat on the University of Sydney eleven a few years previously—contrived to make his capital so pleasant for them that they had lost interest in the savages of the mountain country and settled down to pursue their investigations at Mbau. Everybody, it appeared, had been pleased with the arrangement but the missionary, who, because a large part of his congregation had stayed away from service to watch the Honourable Bertie illustrating the principles of Ranjitsinji's famous "leg glance" for the benefit of the Roku on the village green, had closed up the church and posted a notice in Fijian upon the door that it would not be opened until the Sabbath-breakers had left the island. The Roku who, from his Australian education, is a fairly open minded cynic himself, still hardly felt it desirable politically, as the ranking chief in Fiji, to stir up trouble with the all-powerful missionaries. Accordingly, torn between the exigencies of hospitality and his duty as the chief of a Christianized people, the Roku, dodging responsibility in flight, had departed on an "urgent" mission up the river, telling his guests to continue their "studies" as long as they desired and leaving word for the villagers not to let their love of sport interfere with their devotions. It was at the beginning of this "interregnum" that I arrived.

The natives of Mbau, probably as a result of the example set by their distinguished chief, are very fond of all kinds of outdoor sports, which fact inspired my young friends with the idea of holding a field day in which the white race should compete against the brown. The honour of the Caucasian was to be upheld by Bertie, Tom and myself, while that of the Polynesian would be maintained by a selection from all of the Fijians on the island. Most of the first day was spent arranging the program. The natives wanted a tug-of-war, but our captain, Bertie, realizing that we lacked the "beef" for such a contest, agreed to its inclusion only in the event that the missionary—with whom South Sea life had agreed so well that he weighed in the vicinity of 250 pounds—could be induced to pull with us for the honour of his race. Needless to say the event was not scheduled. We did the sporting thing, however, by offering to oppose an eleven made up of the island's best cricketers with a "team" composed of Bertie, Tom and myself. The other events decided upon were two swimming races, two sprints, one canoe race, shot-put, throwing the cricket ball, broad and high jumps, a "modified Marathon" and three boxing contests.

The second day we spent in practice and "elimination trials" to decide in which particular events each of us was best fitted to compete, as, except for the cricket, the finals were to be strictly "man-to-man" affairs. Luckily, our respective abilities dove-tailed perfectly. Tom was an adept at swimming and no novice in handling the outrigger canoe, while his splendid endurance made him a natural if inexperienced distance runner; Bertie had given promise of developing into one of the fastest amateur sprinters in England before the Gaiety girl supervened, and had recently bested some of the speediest men in Australia at the "hundred" and "two-twenty"; my old varsity events, the shot-put and broad jump, and the remnants of a fair throwing arm, made me our logical representative in the remaining contests we had scheduled. Each of us was slated to box in his respective class—Bertie in the light-weight, Tom in middle-weight, and I—because I weighed a "good fourteen stone and looked jolly fit"—in the heavy-weight.

The elimination trials of the Fijians were not so simple a matter. They fought and wrangled from morn till dewy eve and on into the moonlight in an earnest endeavour to pick the likeliest representatives to uphold the honour of their race. The final list was not handed to Bertie till near midnight, and even then, as became apparent next day, was not quite complete.

Every soul on the island except the immediate members of the missionary's household was on the beach in the morning when the canoe race was started, and, what with beaten war drums and coal oil cans, gave an exhibition that would have made a varsity rooting section look like a Quaker meeting when their man paddled across the line an easy winner. Tom made a good fight but his opponent had too many generations of training behind him. Bertie evened up things by sprinting the length of the village green a house-length ahead of his dusky opponent, and my victory in the broad jump gave us a temporary lead. In the high jump we were weak, and Bertie, who had never essayed the event before, was no match for a slender Fijian youth who had been to school in Auckland.

Tom, who was really a marvel at the Australian "crawl," had his revenge in the swimming race for his defeat in the outrigger contest, beating his man almost two to one in a dash of about a hundred yards across a bight in the sea-wall. The vanquished Fijian, who had also been picked to swim in the race of half a mile or more to the mainland and back, was so crushed by the completeness of his defeat that he refused to compete again, the event being called off.

In the shot-putting contest we used an old rust-eaten twenty-pound cannon ball which had been thrown into the village away back in the 40's by a British gunboat on a punitive mission against the natives for killing and eating a family of missionaries. My opponent made up in strength what he lacked in "form," and by dint of following the shot out of the "ring" put up a mark which I was able to beat only by resorting to the same unorthodox expedient. Bertie added to our score by romping to another easy victory in the sprint around an approximate 220-yard circle which had been marked with coconuts along the outside of the village green.

The last event of the forenoon was the "modified Marathon," to be run over a course once around the island, across the causeway to the mainland and back, and then around the island again to a finish in front of the council house, a distance of about three miles. We had counted on Tom to win this event handily, but the Fijians sprung a "ringer" on us by entering one Lal Singh, a lanky East Indian coolie who was employed by the Roku to carry messages back and forth between Mbau and Rewa. This human greyhound sprang away at the report of the pistol as though running a quarter, and had loped around the island and half way to the mainland before poor Tom, winded already, staggered out upon the leeward beach. Here Bertie and I headed him off and took him out of the race to save his strength for the trials of the afternoon. The natives, appearing to figure the importance of a race in direct proportion to its length, beat their hollow-log drums and sang chesty, sonorous war chants all through the rest hour in celebration of this victory.

While Bertie was winning the cricket ball-throwing contest—a competition in which he substituted for me who had originally qualified for it—I essayed to give the Fijians an exhibition of hammer-throwing, an event with which they were still unfamiliar. In the absence of a regulation hammer, a network of fibre was woven around the twenty-pound cannon ball, and into this mesh the end of a three-foot strand of coco-husk rope was fixed. This contrivance looked decidedly flimsy and, as presently transpired, did not belie its appearance. It held together for a couple of tentative tosses and even through the preliminary swings of a real throw; but when I whirled into the first circle of what was to have been a triple turn the fibrous mesh gave way and, while I did a double back somersault, the ponderous old missile went hurtling through the air and banged against the side of the great council house. The stout wall was not breached, but a muffled crash told of havoc among the tribal relics which adorned the interior. A few minutes later the Mbuli, who with several of the elders had hurried to investigate, emerged with a baleful look on his face to announce that the great yanggona bowl, out of the sacred depths of which kava had been served even to the great Thakambau himself, was split across the middle from a fall to the floor.

The Fijians appeared rather awed at the magnitude of the catastrophe, but the unquenchable Bertie, after placing his "field" for the cricket match, called out to the Mbuli to ask if it did not seem like old times to have the walls of Mbau battered down by cannon balls.

The one-inning cricket game was a Caucasian walk-over. The dazzling work of Tom and Bertie, who alternated between bowling and wicket-keeping, retired man after man with a "goose-egg," and, in spite of the scant and inexperienced "field,"—myself—had the bewildered Fijians all out for less than two score of runs. This total the versatile pair, batting in partnership, exceeded in less than a quarter of an hour.

Acknowledging that they were outclassed in cricket, the Fijians now demanded that a game of soccer football be played upon the same terms—a full team of them to the three of us—and to this proposal the game Bertie, displaying better sportsmanship than judgment, consented. Of course, after a severe buffeting which left us all rather groggy and winded for the boxing contests, the Fijians won.

On any kind of a system of scoring we had a lead of three victories at this juncture, and should, therefore, only been liable to a tie by losing all of the three boxing contests. The natives, however, contending that the winning of the Marathon was equal to a half-dozen ordinary events, insisted that they were at least on even terms with us. Again our complaisant captain, pulling on his gloves for the first bout—the lightweight—waived the point and agreed to let the three boxing contests decide the day. Five seconds later, guarding carelessly in backing away from a clinch, Bertie left a wide opening, driving into which with a well-timed short-arm jolt, his stocky opponent landed on the point of the lad's chin and stretched him limp—a clean knockout—on the turf of the village green.

Tom, who boxed almost as well as he swam, rushed his man—the shifty youth who had defeated the Honourable Bertie in the high-jump—from the beat of the war-drum which was doing service as a gong, and had him so groggy at the end of a couple of minutes that the bewildered fellow started to slug one of his own fuzzy-headed seconds. He was led off to escape further useless punishment, leaving the issue of the day up to the heavyweight bout, with me as the "White Hope."

The ponderously-limbed Goliath, whom the Fijians led out like a blue-ribbon bull at a stock show at this juncture, had been kept out of sight all day, evidently through fear of awakening a protest on our part. He was one mass of hair and rolling muscles from head to heel and needed only a knotted war-club to complete the illusion of having stepped out of the Stone Age upon the green of Mbau.

"Just such a cannibal as old Thakambau must have had for a Lord High Executioner," I told myself, and shuddered at the thought.

Of course, I knew that he could not box; but it was also equally plain that nothing less than a charge of dynamite could have any effect upon his iron-ribbed frame. I stood regarding him with dismay as Tom—they were still fanning the prostrate Bertie with a taro leaf—began to tie on my gloves.

"They've put up a game on us," he said quietly, trying to knead the padding away from over the knuckles of my left hand. "That chap's a hard nut, and they've brought him over from Rewa just because Bertie was telling them that you were the champion of America. It's a dirty trick, but it'll only start a row if we try to call the turn. Go ahead as if nothing was wrong, but be sure and not try any in-fighting. Then we'll at least get a draw out of it. I'll tell you about him later. Now don't forget. Keep clear!"

It was with that sound injunction well in mind that I stepped out to where the glowering gorilla was waiting in the middle of the circle.

For a few seconds we stared stupidly at each other, and then, because I was too nervous to stand still, I began dancing around my stolid opponent. He followed me with his eyes, owl fashion, not moving his huge, flat feet until I was almost behind him.

"He's slower even than I thought," I told myself, and began to feel better.

After prancing in a couple of circles without making my burly antagonist do more than mark time to keep me in eye-sweep, I plucked up courage and, stepping in quickly, drove for his prognathous jaw. Without the flicker of an eyelash, he bent his great neck and took the blow in the depths of his woolly hair. Hardly did he seem to need to brace himself, so completely was the force taken up in this natural shock-absorber. To sharp hooks in the ribs and upper abdomen he replied in the same passive way, ducking his head whether I led for the face or not. With a chest like the bulge of a steam boiler and three inches of corrugated iron muscles armouring his solar plexus, there was no need of guarding anything but his face, and this he did by the simple expedient of putting out his foot-deep shock of matted hair every time I made a feint in that direction.

"The dolt is no more than a human punching-bag," I told myself; "but even a punching-bag has been known to break if hammered long enough," forthwith beginning to try the effect of persistent hammering. Scored as a sparring contest, I would have won the decision by a hundred points to nil, for the stolid monster seemed perfectly content to let me circle around him and hit almost when and where I pleased. But we were fighting under Fijian rules, which hold that the contest, undivided by rounds, shall continue until one of the parties is unwilling, or unable, to go on. Now and then, when I would hook a stiff jolt in under the fringe of his mop to the side of the neck, he would wince a bit, but most of the time he simply stood with bowed head and set muscles and let me pound away. It may be that my blows lacked steam after my long day of unwonted exertion under the tropical sun, or it may be that the hulking frame, with its armour of knotted muscles, was damage-proof as long as the jaw was protected. One thing was certain, at any rate,—the only effect of my frenzied hammering was to tire myself out without discomfiting, or even, apparently, annoying my burly opponent in the least.

"Take it easy to sunset and we'll call it off for a draw," muttered Tom behind me as I stepped back to get my breath after beating a sounding tattoo of right and left hooks in a vain effort to jar the armoured solar plexus of the Cave Man.

It was sound advice and I should probably have followed it had not the Honourable Bertie—he had been brought to a few minutes previously and was just awakening to an interest in his surroundings—cut in with "Don't quit. Step in close and uppercut straight up for his face. Remember you're the 'White Hope.'"

There certainly did seem room to slip one up between the dome of the swelling chest and the fringes of the hair-mop that would do some damage, provided one only went in close enough, and, without stopping to ponder the possible consequences, I stepped forward and drove a hard right uppercut, just as Bertie had suggested. Smash! My glove landed squarely in the middle of Cave Man's face, straightening him up with a jerk and offering the very opening for the jaw that I had awaited ever since the bout began. I was just starting a left hook of which I entertained high hopes, when, closely following the roar of pain and rage which signalized the landing of my right, something swift and terrific as a Bolt of Wrath came hurtling against my jaw, an explosion like the Crack of Doom rang in my ears, and—I came to some hours later to find a sedate-looking Fijian lady in sombre black—the Mbuli's wife—massaging my bruised face with one hand and holding a Bible from which she was reading in the other. An austere-faced white woman, whom I thought I recognized as the missionary's wife, was renewing a turtle-steak poultice upon one of the Honourable Bertie's rainbow-coloured optics, while a Fijian in a long coat and black sulu was kneading out the cramp-knotted muscles in Tom's overworked calves. The three of us were in the little mission hospital.

"The Reverend B—— and his wife have been working over you since sundown," said Bertie thickly through a bandage. "In fact, they've been very kind to all of us in the matter of lending 'first aid.' We've apologized for stirring up all this jolly rumpus here, and Tom and I have promised to leave with you for Suva as soon as you're able to travel. It may comfort you a bit, old chap, to know that the Reverend B—— has just gone over to set the nose of your late opponent. Perhaps you don't remember that you landed a tap just before he hit you."

"Oh, that was what it was," I said with a sigh of comprehension, sinking back upon the pillows. "I thought some one had been practising with the twenty-pound hammer again."

The last thing I recall before dropping off to sleep was the sound of singing and beaten war-drums welling up from the village green. "The Fijians celebrate the triumph of the Polynesian," explained Bertie in answer to my look of inquiry. "That chant is one they used to sing on returning from a successful foray laden with the heads of many enemies. They seem to trace some similarity between the two occasions."

On the way back to Suva Tom told me about the Cave Man. "The chap is probably the strongest man in Fiji," he said, "and as stupid as he is powerful. Several years ago one of the Australian overseers at the Rewa sugar plantation took him in hand and taught him that trick of protecting his face by turning down his hair-mop, and since then he has stood up against the champion heavyweight of every warship that has come to Suva without being knocked out. Several of the careless ones have fared quite as badly as you did, and one of them, who had floored him with a lucky poke, he later got hold of, threw down and started to chew to pieces. That broken nose you gave him was the worst damage he ever received, and he would probably have started a cannibal feast off your limp anatomy if the Mbuli and the rest of us hadn't crowded him off."

The Roku Kandavu Levu came to Suva shortly before our departure and paid us several visits on the yacht. We found him a most engaging and likable fellow and an especial enthusiast on yachting. He is a graduate of the University of Sydney, and in speech, manners, tastes—in everything, in fact, but colour, hair and dress—is thoroughly British. His yacht, a fine 40-footer which he sails himself, is the fastest craft in the islands. He displayed great interest in our cruise, and expressed himself as determined to build a staunch schooner and embark on a similar one as soon as opportunity offered.

The Roku's dress is a unique compromise between the native and the foreign. He wears the shirt, collar, tie and coat, and carries the inevitable stick, of the Britisher, but goes bare-footed and covers his legs with nothing but the common native sulu, a yard and a half of print which is tucked in at the waist and falls to the knees. From the waist up he is apparelled faultlessly enough to parade Piccadilly or Broadway; from the waist down carelessly enough to suit the laziest Kanaka that ever lolled away a noonday under a coconut tree. It was the latter portion of his "combination suit" which came near to causing serious trouble on the occasion of his first visit to Lurline.

From the hour of our arrival in Suva harbour the sailors had been much bothered in their work by an endless succession of fruit peddlers and curio venders who made the sale of their stocks an excuse for loafing about the yacht. The Commodore was finally forced to order that there should be no more visiting by unaccredited natives except during the noon hour and early in the evening, the enforcement of which ruling was being looked after by the mate with great enthusiasm. By the free use of his glass and megaphone and his rapidly expanding vocabulary of "Beche-de-Mer" English he had, to his great pride and satisfaction, succeeded in keeping intruders at a distance for several days, so that it was with no ordinary rush of indignation that he greeted, one busy afternoon, the sight of a pair of muscular brown legs moving leisurely by a port—the mate was below at the time—as they carried their owner up the brass-railed starboard gangway, which, incidentally, was especially tabu for natives.

At the same moment that a deep-chested roar of "Hare, you dam'd Kanaka!" came booming out upon the still afternoon air, the Commodore was beaming welcome from the head of the gangway to the stately head and shoulders of the handsome and dignified Roku Kandavu Levu who, escorted by several prominent British officials, had come off in the Governor's launch for his initial call. We managed to check the rush of the infuriated mate at the foot of the cabin companionway and sober him with some forceful pantomime and a peep at the Governor's launch through a convenient port, but the echo of that "Hare, you dam'd Kanaka!" kept ringing in our ears through the whole fifteen minutes of an unusually stiff call.

We never learned whether or not the Roku comprehended for whom the mate's forcible orders were intended, but if he failed to discern that they were aimed at his royal self it was largely due to the resourceful Claribel's cheerful chirrup of "The worthy Chief seems to be having more trouble than usual with curio venders today. Speaking of curios—won't Your Highness please tell me if this shark's tooth necklace which I bought yesterday is really genuine?"