Several great groups of people occupy the vast island world of the Pacific. We have already spoken of the Malays. In Australia live many tribes differing in language and customs. They are mostly dark brown with bushy or curly hair. They are savages in culture. South of Australia, in Van Diemen’s Land, or Tasmania, there formerly lived a dark brown people, not tall in stature, with peculiar features and long curly hair; they are now all gone. North of Australia, in Papua or New Guinea, are many tribes with curious and interesting arts and customs. The real Papuans are dark brown in color and have woolly hair, which, like that of the Bushmen, _seems_ to grow in tufts with bare spaces between. They are of medium stature. The islands to the east and south of Australia and New Guinea are occupied by black, woolly-haired tribes, who are called Melanesians, and who are related to the Papuans. Among them are the natives of Fiji, New Britain, New Ireland, and the Solomon Islands. The Fijians of fifty years ago will well represent the Melanesians. Thomas Williams, _Fiji and the Fijians_, will give us our facts. The Fijian hair-dressing was striking. Each chief had a special hair-dresser, who frequently spent several hours a day in arranging his master’s hair. The hairs were trained to stand out from the head so as to form a great mass that might be trimmed into curious shapes. This smooth, soft, solid, cushion-like mass of hair was stained with colors—jet black naturally, it might be blue-black, ashy white, or shades of red. The whole mass of hair, except a band in front, might be black, while _that_ was white; sometimes the hair behind was twisted into cords ending with tassels; one man had a knot of fiery red hair on the crown while the rest of his head was shaved; sometimes the hair mass measured four feet or more in circumference. Such grand hair-dressing would be ruined by lying down with the head on the ground—so the Fijians had a wooden head-rest or pillow, which was set under the neck and held the head up, off the ground. [Illustration: FIJIAN (RATZEL).] Men wore a long sash of bark cloth, which was anywhere from three to one hundred yards long. This was passed between the legs and wound around the waist any number of times; if it were long and the man wanted to present a _fine_ appearance it was folded several times up against the upper part of his body; the ends were allowed to trail behind. The men wore a turban of the same material, but fine and gauzy; from four to six feet long, it was wrapped around the head, several times if need be; if the hair mass was large, however, it would go little more than once. Women wore little but a fringed waist band, which hung to the knees.