I have often succeeded in detaching these unbroken, and they are perfect miniatures of the ordinary Fijian pots. They are made of the same blue clay, which the potter has learned to mix with sand. Once the idea was started, other objects in nature soon suggested variety of form, such as the shell of the turtle and the form of various fruits. Considering the coarseness of the clay used, and the rude manner in which the pots are fashioned, wholly by hand and by rule of thumb, and considering, also, that the manufacturers are people whom the civilised world are wont to regard as utter savages, I think that when you see my collection you will be greatly impressed by the artistic beauty and immense variety of form thus produced. Naturally what are made for ordinary domestic purposes—_i.e._, cooking and water pots—adhere pretty much to one type; but in the patterns with which these are decorated, and the manufacture of what we may call fancy articles, every potter follows her own taste, and the same exact form is very rarely reproduced. We have occasionally tried to get duplicates made to order, but the result has almost invariably been most unsatisfactory; and in no case will the potters of one district attempt to copy a piece which has been brought from some other island or district. It is for this reason that I have, as I mentioned to you, taken so much trouble to paint careful studies of many of the principal pieces which have passed through our hands, to whichever collectors they have belonged. I suppose I have fully sixty such studies, several of which include two or three pieces. The objects vary in size, from small bowls or water-jars, six or eight inches in height, to great cooking-pots, three feet deep; and the colours range from richest golden to a deep red, running into green, the colour being chiefly due to the glaze. That which is commonly used is the heated resin of the _ndakua_ pine, almost identical with the _kaurie_ pine of New Zealand, which yields the beautiful amber-like gum. There are certain forms which find general favour, and are very commonly made. Such are, clusters of four or six globes, the size of an orange, all connected one with another, and each having a hollow tube leading from one aperture at the top, by which all the globes are filled. On the same principle are rude imitations of canoes, joined together by one handle; also turtles, single or in pairs. These are of a very conventional type. When I was staying at Bau (which, tiny as it is, is divided into six towns), I was greatly interested in watching the potters of So So at work. So So is the fisher town, and the potters are generally wives of the fishermen. There I spent some hours in the picturesque hut of an old crone, trying to persuade her to model her turtles from a living one which was walking about on the mats; but she preferred her own monstrous ideal, and chuckled with delight every time the fins and feet of mine fell off.