Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 48.djvu/242

230, he remained a determined heathen. This continued so long as he was prosperous; but when, in 1854, tribe after tribe had successfully rebelled against him, he began to listen more favorably to the counsels of the Christians. On the 30th of April of that year he gave orders that the great drums at his capital, which had been used till then to summon his people to cannibal feasts, should be beaten to call them together at the mission house to worship the true God. Two years later, having remained true to his new faith, he was united in Christian marriage to his favorite wife, and they were together baptized.

It was the same king who, at a later period, finding himself a mere puppet in the hands of foreigners, who had formed themselves into a government, of which he was the nominal head, brought about a general appeal from the most powerful chiefs to England's Queen for protection—an appeal which was, in 1874, listened to with favor. Upon this occasion Thakombau sent to Queen Victoria his favorite war club, which he himself styled "the former, and until recently the only known, law of Fiji."

The territory thus acquired by the British Empire comprises over two hundred islands of various sizes, some seventy-five of which are inhabited. The largest, Viti Levu, is oval in form, and has an area nearly equal to that of the State of Connecticut. Vanua Levu, lying to the northeast of Viti Levu, rather exceeds Delaware in size. Between these two islands, which are by far the largest in the group, is a channel some thirty miles in width; but the sea here, as well as over an immense area to the north, is so full of coral patches that navigation is exceedingly dangerous. The southern shores of the islands are more accessible, and afford many excellent harbors, of which that of Suva, the English capital, on the southeast coast of Viti Levu, is the best.

The study of the difference in the character of the northern and southern aspects of the larger islands affords an interesting lesson in physical geography. Thrust upward into the currents of the southeast trade winds to a height of over four thousand feet, the mountain ranges act as huge condensers, precipitating in torrents of rain the moisture which these currents have absorbed from the open sea. This condensation takes place principally as the winds blow up the southern mountain slopes, so that comparatively little rain falls upon the north side of the islands. The largest streams, therefore, flow back down the southern slopes to the sea, where they discharge immense volumes of fresh water. As fresh water is fatal to most species of coral polyps, we find here, along the southern coast, comparatively few of those dangerous reefs that fringe the islands on the north.

The fertility of the soil, which in the valleys and on all the southern slopes is thoroughly saturated with moisture, is quite