Page:Williams and Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians, New York, 1860.djvu/68

 CHAPTEK lY INDUSTEIAL PEODUCE, ETC. PRIESTS BOWLS. It is pleasing to turn from the horrible scenes of barbarous war, to the gentler and more profitable occupations of peace, of which the tillage of the soil seems always the attractive type. At this point there is observable one of the strange and almost anomalous blendings of opposite traits in the Fijian character. Side by side with the wildest savageism, we find among the natives of this group an attention to agriculture, and a variety of cultivated produce, not to be found among any other of the numerous islands of the western Pacific. It is observed that the increase of cultivated plants is regular on receding from the Hawaiian group up to Fiji, where roots and fruits are found that are unknown on the more eastern islands.* The natives raise large
 * Pickering's " Eaces of Man," p. 153.