The same diversity of inventive power and artistic skill is discernible among the Indians of North America as has been already referred to in comparing the arts of other uncivilised races. In some constructive skill predominates, while others manifest a peculiar aptitude for imitative art. The powers of imitation common to the barbarous and the civilised nations of the New World, are specially worthy of note; and will again come under review when referring to the pipe manufacture, so curiously typical of American art. But meanwhile an equally instructive illustration of what may thus be designated æsthetic and constructive instincts may be selected from the diversely gifted islanders of the Southern Pacific. On the extreme western verge of the Polynesian archipelago lie the Fiji Islands, occupied by a people remarkable among the islanders of the Pacific alike for physical and intellectual peculiarities. The Fijian physiognomy is described as presenting general characteristics of debasement, when compared with that of the true Polynesian, and the entire proportions and contour of their figure are markedly inferior to those of the Friendly and Navigator islanders. This is the more remarkable in a people dwelling in the midst of abundance, and enjoying an unusual variety of choice articles of food. Their ferocious and treacherous habits, however, and the hideous customs of cannibalism and systematic parricide, with attendant crimes inevitable in such a social condition, have rendered the Fijian Islands, which seem fitted by nature to be abodes of happiness, among the most wretched scenes of moral degradation. Nevertheless it is in this strange island-group that the arts of the South Pacific have their highest development.