Fiji was the next place of call. Warm rain drove blusterously into our faces, while dense grey mist enveloped the land and shut out the sun, as the _Renown_ felt her way between wreck-strewn barrier reefs, over which the surf was breaking heavily, and dropped anchor, to the tick of the appointed time, in the sheltered water of Suva Bay. As the ship cleared the harbour entrance, a fleet of sailing craft, including a number of decked, outrigged war-canoes, with pear-shaped mat-sails and half-naked crews, tore dipping through the waves to escort her in. These war-canoes tacked, in the stiff breeze, by a simple expedient. The sail was reversed. The rudder, a big movable oar, was then carried from one end of the canoe to the other, so that what had just been the prow became the stern, the floating log, that served as outrigger, remaining always to windward--apparently an attempt at realizing the historic account of the bow-sprit that "got mixed with the rudder sometimes." The little craft were identical with those that Tasman may have seen when his brig cast anchor off these islands three hundred and seventy years ago. But everything else has changed. Generations of Wesleyan missionaries have transformed snake-worship into universal Christianity. Sixty thousand coolies from India have rendered it possible for the sugar-cane to replace unproductive forest. The ninety thousand fuzzy-headed Fijians who have survived successive epidemics of measles and influenza have given up the savoury heresies of roast long pig and have taken on trousers, education, and wealth. The substantial maroon-coloured roofs of their dwellings upon the shore, which emerged from a tumbled background of cloud-topped mountain when the mist lifted, were indicative of the prosperity and civilization which have been steadily growing in the forty-six years since the British Government took over the administration from King Thakombau.