they can supply their own simple needs in their own homes. It is probable that arrangements will shortly be made for importing a large supply of Hindoo coolies from Calcutta, a measure which does not at present meet with cordial welcome, as of course the cost of transporting them to and fro will add materially to the expenses of the planters who engage them. Meanwhile, on all large plantations there are representatives of half the Polynesian Isles, each lot living somewhat apart from the others, in separate quarters, and all having distinctive characteristics to be dealt with and considered, their dispositions being as diverse as are their features and complexions. There are Tanna men, with long hair done in a multitude of tiny plaits; straight-haired Tokalaus from the Line Islands, with sallow skin and large dark eyes; woolly heads and grizzly heads of every variety from the Banks Islands and the Loyalty group, or Erromango. The men most sought after as really hard workers come from Tanna, in the New Hebrides; while some of their nearest neighbours in the same group prove utterly useless. But the least popular come from the Solomon Isles, these being literally untamable, preserving the instincts of their race, who are all ferocious cannibals and treacherous to a degree. Some even come from Santa Cruz, that name of bitter association, which, twice over—first in 1871, and again last August—has thrilled all the world with horror, when two of the noblest men who ever sailed the southern seas, striving so lovingly to do good everywhere, fell victims to the treacherous arrows of the people they would fain have helped. Of course you know I allude to Bishop Patteson and Commodore Goodenough—names worthy for evermore to be enshrined side by side among the foremost of Christian martyrs. Just imagine what cheerful work it must be for a planter beginning life in Fiji to watch for the arrival of a vessel freighted with foreign labour, the wildest-looking creatures you can possibly conceive; and then, having engaged a number of these for three years, to start for some remote estate on a distant isle, accompanied by a horde of utterly untutored savages from a dozen different groups, all having different customs and different languages, alike only in their total ignorance of the work required of them, and requiring to be taught everything from the very beginning. Picture to yourself having these for your only companions, and knowing that they are certain to leave you at the expiration of their three years’ service, just when you have, by dint of unwearied patience and trouble, succeeded in training them in some measure. There would be some compensation in such dismal work if it were to result in coining gold, and so securing a speedy return to England, or even the chance of making a really comfortable home out here; but the road to wealth in Fiji seems to be like the approach to heaven, strait and narrow, and few there be that find it.