It is obvious therefore that the savage vices of the Fijians are perfectly compatible with considerable skill in such arts as pertain to their primitive and insular condition. Their musical instruments are superior to those of the Polynesians, and include the Pan-pipe and others unknown in the islands beyond their range. Their pottery also exhibits great variety of form, and includes examples of vessels combined in groups, presenting a curious correspondence to similar productions of Peruvian art. Their fishing-nets and lines are remarkable for neat and skilful workmanship, and they carry cultivation to a considerable extent. “Indeed,” remarks the ethnologist of the United States Expedition, in summing up the characteristics of the Fijians, “we soon began to perceive that the people were in possession of almost every art known to the Polynesians, and of many others besides. The highly-finished workmanship was unexpected, everything being executed until recently, and even now for the most part, without the use of iron. In the collection of implements and manufactures brought home by the Expedition, the observer will distinguish in the Fijian division something like a school of arts for the other Pacific islands.” Fig. 59 shows two characteristic specimens of their pottery selected from the Smithsonian collections at Washington. They are extremely well burnt, and finished with a bright glaze. One of them illustrates a class of double vessels suggestive of certain analogies with a familiar style of Peruvian pottery; and the prevailing characteristics of the whole collection confirm the superiority ascribed to the Fijian artificer. In such a strangely-gifted savage race we see the degradation of which human nature is susceptible; and at the same time recognise germs of a constructive and artistic capacity capable of development into many marvellous manifestations, if once subjected to such influences as those which changed the merciless pirate of the northern seas into the refined Norman, the chivalrous crusader, and the imaginative troubadour. The native races of America are neither devoid of energy nor ingenious artistic skill; and the progress attained by the Mexicans and Peruvians, as well as by the nations of Central America, proved their capacity for advancement in the arts of civilisation. But the fate which has everywhere befallen the Red Indians when brought into direct contact with European settlers, shows how impossible it is to abruptly bridge over the gulf which separates the infancy of nations from a maturity like that to which the rude Saxon and Northman attained through the schooling of many centuries. The Aztecs at the time of the Mexican conquest were probably not ruder than the first Angle and Saxon colonists. They were certainly no crueler than the Northmen of the eighth century. But they were far in advance of the northern tribes from which, according to Aztec traditions, they traced their descent.