In the last few days there have been a great many weddings: and the people here are much more elaborately got up for the occasion than our friends in the mountains. Here both bride and bridegroom are swathed in so many yards of beautifully painted native cloth, that it is scarcely possible for them to move. As they could not walk any distance with this inconvenient weight of magnificence, those who come from other villages let their friends carry the wedding-garment, and then they dress under the trees beside the sea—a process which I have often watched with much interest. The cloth is rolled round the body in so many folds that the victim is simply a walking bale of stuff; besides this, great loops and folds are worn _en panier_, and a huge frill is so arranged as to stand up like a fan at the back. A train of eight or ten yards is carried by attendants; and the effect produced is really very handsome and becoming, especially when several couples arrive at church simultaneously. Some have come in the evening by torchlight—the torches made of bundles of reeds, which blaze brightly—and the scene has been a very pretty one. We went one evening to a wedding-feast, hoping to see some of the old distinctive ceremonies, such as Mrs Langham remembers in old days. But the graceful customs have been abandoned, together with the unseemly, and the young couple simply sat together, partook of pig and yam, and washed their hands in one bowl. The bride was the prettiest girl I have seen in Fiji. Her hair was powdered with finely-grated sandal-wood, and her wedding-dress consisted of folds of the finest gauze-like _masi_, crossed over each shoulder and under the breasts. One of the couples seemed to afford great amusement to the bystanders,—a very cheery little old maid was marrying a kindly-looking old man. They seemed quite happy about it themselves, so could afford to let the neighbours laugh. One poor young couple were not allowed to marry, as, at the last moment, Mr Langham discovered that the damsel was a minor, and her father absent.