As is often the case in countries where polygamy is practised, the law of descent passes through the female line, the successor of the king or chief being always the son of a woman of high rank. The oddest part of Fijian political economy is the system of Vasu, or nephew--a system which may be described as nepotism carried to the greatest possible extreme. Mr. Williams’s description of the Vasu is very curious. “The word means a nephew, or niece, but becomes a title of office in the case of the male, who in some localities has the extraordinary privilege of appropriating whatever he chooses belonging to his uncle, or those under his uncle’s power. “Vasus are of three kinds: the _Vasu-taukei_, the _Vasu-levu_ and the _Vasu_;--the last is a common name, belonging to any nephew whatever. Vasu-taukei is a term applied to any Vasu whose mother is a lady of the land in which he was born. The fact of Mbau being at the head of Fijian rank gives the Queen of Mbau a pre-eminence over all Fijian ladies, and her son a place nominally over all Vasus. “No material difference exists between the power of a Vasu-taukei and a Vasu-levu, which latter title is given to every Vasu born of a woman of rank, and having a first-class chief for his father. A Vasu-taukei can claim anything belonging to a native of his mother’s land, excepting the wives, home, and land of a chief. Vasus cannot be considered apart from the civil polity of the group, forming, as they do, one of its integral parts, and supplying the high-pressure power of Fijian despotism. “In grasping at dominant influence, the chiefs have created a power, which ever and anon turns round and grips them with no gentle hand. However high a chief may rank, however powerful a king may be, if he has a nephew, he has a master, one who will not be content with the name, but who will exercise his prerogative to the full seizing whatever will take his fancy, regardless of its value or the owner’s inconvenience in its loss. Resistance is not to be thought of, and objection is only offered in extreme cases. A striking instance of the power of the Vasu occurred in the case of Thokonauto, a Rewa chief, who, during a quarrel with an uncle, used the right of Vasu, and actually supplied himself with ammunition from his enemy’s stores.... “Descending in the social scale, the Vasu is a hindrance to industry, few being willing to labor unrewarded for another’s benefit. One illustration will suffice. An industrious uncle builds a canoe in which he has not made half-a-dozen trips, when an idle nephew mounts the deck, sounds his trumpet-shell, and the blast announces to all within hearing that the canoe has that instant changed masters.”