Page:Williams and Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians, New York, 1860.djvu/89

 INDrSTRIAL PEODUCE, ETC. 65 the mangrove forests, and from ten to twenty feet long, and secured to the rafters by split rattans. Some very good houses are covered first with the cane leaves, and then with the grass, forming a double thatch. Sometimes the eaves are made two feet thick with ferns, and have a good effect ; but, when thicker, they look heavy, and, by retaining the wet, soon rot. The ridge of superior buildings receives much attention. The ends of the ridge-pole project for a yard or more beyond the thatch, having the extremities blackened, and increasing with a funnel-shape, and deco- rated with large white shells ( Cyprea ovula). The rest of the ridge is finished as a large roll bound with vines, and on this is fixed a thick, well-twisted grass cable : another similar cable is passed along the under side of the roll, having hung from it a row of large tassels. All foreigners are stuck with the tasteful character of this work, and lament that its materials are not more durable. I have seen several houses in which the upper edge of the eaves was finished with a neat braid. The thatchers, contrary to the statement in the " U. S. Exploring Nar- rative," always begin at the eaves and work upwards. A more animated scene than the thatching of a house in Fiji cannot be conceived. When a sufficient quantity of material has been collected round the house, the roof of which has been previously covered with a net-work of reeds, from forty to three hundred men and boys assemble, each being satisfied that he is expected to do some work, and each determined to be very noisy in doing it. The workers within pair with those outside, each tying what another lays on. When all have taken their places, and are getting warm, the calls for grass, rods, and lashings, and the answers, all coming from two or three hundred excited voices of all keys, intermixed with stamping down the thatch, and shrill cries of exultation from every quarter, make a miniature Babel, in which the Fijian — a notorious proficient in nearly every variety of halloo, whoop, and yell — fairly outdoes himself All that is excellent in material or workmanship in the Chiefs' houses, is seen to perfection and in unspar- ing profusion in the hure^ or temple. An intelligent voyager observes, " In architecture the Fijians have made no mean progress ; and they are the only people I have seen, among those classed by Europeans as ' savages,' who manifested a taste for the fine arts ; while, as with the ancient Greeks, this taste was universal." * Sailors — an important part of the Fijian community — are found
 * Pickering's " Kaces of Man," p. 153.