From 1861 to 1869 the Europeans increased to 1800, and the control of political affairs passed from the native chiefs to Europeans, who served as a check upon Maafu's ambition. The mission spread rapidly, until by 1870 all but a few of the inland tribes were nominally Christian. Various unsuccessful attempts were made to establish a settled government, but in 1871 Thakombau was declared constitutional sovereign of the entire group, with a ministry and two houses of parliament, a form of government ridiculously unsuited to the needs of the country, seeing that the natives, who numbered nearly one hundred to one, were to have no votes. Thakombau had an army officered by white men, and made abortive attempts to conquer the interior, but the new government did little beyond plunging into debt, and splitting the country into factions. In 1873 the political state of the group had become intolerable, and on British Commissioners being sent to inquire into the matter on the spot, the chiefs were induced, after some hesitation, to cede the sovereignty to England unconditionally. The Deed of Cession was signed in September, 1874. No doubt the chiefs acted to some extent under pressure from the Europeans, who had purchased land which they could not enjoy while it was in occupation by natives, and for which they desired to have titles. The Lands Commission had a task of extraordinary difficulty. Tracts had been sold by chiefs who had no title to them, and sometimes the same land had been sold to two or more purchasers. Many of the deeds produced could never have been understood by the natives who signed them, and often the boundaries were imperfectly described. Sir Arthur Gordon,[32] the first Governor, wisely decided to govern the natives as far as possible through the machinery that he found in operation, and it encountered no open opposition with the exception of an insignificant rising in the western interior of Vitilevu, where the tribes, provoked by the encroachments of their neighbours on the coast, and alarmed at the ravages of the measles, reverted to their heathen gods for a few months. This outbreak was put down by native levies. Thakombau, who received a pension of £1500 a year, was loyal to the British Government, and, both in the administration of his own province and in his intercourse with other chiefs, used his immense influence to promote the contentment of his people under their new rulers. At his death in 1882 the last of the great chiefs passed away, for Maafu had died in the preceding year. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 16: One of them, having thus smeared his head, stooped to the fire to dry it; the powder flared up, and he leapt forth into the _rara_ singed bare to the scalp.]