The natural productions of this group are extensive, and comprise bread‐ fruit, taro, cocoa‐nuts, yams, bananas, plantains, guavas, oranges and lemons, wild and cultivated tobacco, sugar, cotton, and coffee. The india‐ rubber tree is cultivated, and among the leading exports are dried cocoa‐ nut and pearl‐shell. As there are at the present time comparatively few white settlers—perhaps not over 2,500 in all the islands—there are innumerable openings for settlement, and Fiji, with many other neighbouring islands, will doubtless soon afford fresh examples of British enterprise. The point touched by the steamers is Kandavu, on one of the southernmost islands, where Mount Washington, a fine mountain, rears its head 3,000 feet into the clouds. A visitor says:—“From the eastern point of land run out miles of coral reef, on which the ocean rollers are breaking grandly, and outside this barrier we take our pilot on board. The entrance to Kandavu harbour is narrow and intricate, and here the _Macgregor_, one of the mail steamers, struck on a submerged reef, and remained for several days hard and fast aground.” The passage has been properly buoyed and lighted, and the New Company have built offices and stores, and established a coaling station here. “The view of Port Ugaloa from the entrance is very beautiful. On our left the coral reef encloses a still lagoon of the softest, lightest green; before us hills and mountains, covered from base to summit with the richest vegetation, are tipped with fleecy cloud; and on our right, dividing the waters of the bay, is Ugaloa Island, its slopes feathery with the foliage of the cocoa‐palm and banana, half hidden in which appear here and there the low brown huts of the natives.... The brothers L. accompany me ashore on Ugaloa, landing close to a small collection of huts scattered about just above the coral‐strewn beach. It is Sunday afternoon, and a native missionary is preaching to some fifty men, women, and children, squatting on their hams on the mat‐covered floor of a neat, white‐washed mission house. Amongst the congregation is a tall native, with a thick cane, keeping silence by tapping the heads of the inattentive. The preacher is eloquent and energetic in gesture; but Fiji is hardly a pretty language to listen to, being decidedly characterised by queer guttural sounds, and spoken very fast. The sermon over, a hymn is read out and sung to a rather monotonous dirge‐like chant, and the congregation disperse. We are at once surrounded by an olive‐skinned crowd; the ladies’ dresses are minutely examined, for a white lady has scarcely been seen in Kandavu before the present year. The gentlemen have to display their watches and chains, and by means of shouting and signs every one is soon carrying on a vigorous conversation. Why is it that one always elevates the voice when trying to make one’s native tongue intelligible to a foreigner?