Starting from Suva in a head wind, about six hours’ hard rowing brought us to the Rewa, which is certainly a very fine river—the largest of the main island, Viti Levu, and navigable for fifty miles. It receives the waters of various mountain-streams (navigable only by canoes), and itself becomes so large a body of water, that, ere reaching the town of Rewa, its width is about equal to that of the Thames at London Bridge. Here it divides into a network of streams, and enters the sea by many mouths, all bordered with the monotonous green of the mangrove, which overspreads the dreary swamp with its extraordinary and intricate network of roots. We passed through some miles of this strange mangrove country, starting an innumerable number of wild duck, and at last reached Rewa,[21] which is a large village of the invariable thatched houses. Here we found a great gathering of the people to receive the Governor, on his first visit to this town; and as his boat approached, the river-banks were thronged with native chiefs and their followers, all squatting on the ground, in the correct attitude of respect—for Fijian etiquette prohibits an inferior from standing in presence of a superior, as strictly as it forbids him passing behind him. So great a concourse of people had rarely, if ever, been seen at Rewa: it was calculated that nearly 5000 were present, a number the more remarkable as the ravages of the measles last spring were peculiarly felt in this district, where it is computed that 8000 perished, including no less than ninety teachers, all carefully trained men,—a loss which cannot easily be replaced. Great were the preparations for the native festivities on the morrow, and you can imagine my dismay on learning that, owing to the irregularity of posts, and the day for this ceremony having been repeatedly deferred, Mr Langham had made all his arrangements for starting from Rewa that very day. And, in truth, we had not landed five minutes, when the mission boat arrived from Bau. Complicated arrangements had been made for teachers and people to come from distant points and meet us at different villages on each day of the week, so that delay was impossible. Consequently I was obliged to give up one thing or the other, which was intensely aggravating; but, on weighing both, the expedition into the interior was voted the more important; and so, with many regrets, I turned away from Rewa and its picturesque crowds, merely halting long enough to get some tea from Mrs Webb at the ever-hospitable Wesleyan mission station. Then we embarked in the large mission boat,—Mr and Mrs Langham and myself, rowed by half-a-dozen stalwart young students from the training institution at Bau.