great bird, but it was empty, and they found only one little finger of the hapless Tutu Wathi Wathi. The angry gods now swore to avenge her death, when presently they saw the monster approaching, his great wings darkening the sea like the shadow of a storm cloud. In his beak he carried five large turtles and in his talons ten porpoises. These he deposited upon the rocks and proceeded to devour, while Okovo prayed the other gods to help him by sending a storm of wind. The prayer was answered, and a sudden gust ruffled the feathers of the monster, so that Rokoua was able to force a spear through an unprotected spot into his vitals. Having thus accomplished their just revenge, they took one of the smallest feathers for a new sail, and then cast the dead body into the sea, causing such a surge as to "flood the foundations of the sky."
It is to be regretted that these legends have not been more carefully collected by the earlier settlers in Fiji. Even the few of them which have been preserved exhibit a truly interesting national character. But this national character has been lost since the advent of the European. The Fijian of to-day does not like to be reminded in any way of the old days when cannibalism was in vogue. He is exceedingly sensitive to the sneer of the white man. While the race has been partially rescued from barbarism, it has lost its old vigor and spirit. The native population has of late years been decreasing at an alarming rate. An epidemic of measles, heedlessly introduced in 1875, carried off fifty thousand souls, about one third of the whole population of the islands. Fiji is but the vestige of a former continent, which has gone down beneath the steadily encroaching sea. The Fijians are fast becoming, before the resistless encroachments of the European, only the vestige of a former race.
We have here now a well-ordered British colony. Sugar, cotton, wool, tobacco, bananas, cocoanuts, and other agricultural products are exported in great quantities. The extensive plantations are worked largely by laborers introduced from India and the neighboring Pacific islands. But as a colony Fiji does not prosper. Better times are looked for when the Nicaragua Canal shall have become a reality, as these islands lie upon the great commercial route which will then be established between England and Australia.
