Notwithstanding all this there was the making of a very superior people in them; for when the missionaries and the teachers got among them the natives proved very apt pupils. Now there are more than twelve hundred church buildings--and a school-house or two for every church. Some of the ministers and teachers are English, but there are about four thousand native teachers and ministers, nearly all of whom were trained for their work in the island schools. They are fine farmers, probably the best in the islands of the Pacific. They grow bananas, pineapples, peanuts, and lemons for the Australians, copra and tobacco for the British, and rice, taro, and garden vegetables for themselves. They have learned to irrigate their farms, using open ditches and bamboo mains. They make the finest canoes to be found in the Pacific. Some of the canoes are barges nearly one hundred feet in length; and not even the Hawaiians are more expert in using them. Not a little profit to the islanders comes from the sea. They are expert divers and gather large quantities of pearl shells, which find a ready market with the button-makers of Europe. Fish are caught, dried, and sold in China. One sea product, the beche-de-mer, a marine animal commonly called "sea-cucumber," is highly prized by the Chinese, who use large quantities; most of it is gathered by the Fijians. Sugar, however, is the chief product of the islands, and the sugar plantations are owned by great companies that have invested millions of pounds sterling in the business. The plantations altogether produce more than three million dollars' worth of sugar yearly. The native islanders will not work in the sugar fields; so coolies from India were brought to the islands to work on the plantations. Suva (Viti Levu), and Leonka (Ovalu), the two largest towns, are much like European cities, except that the houses are low and have large yards filled with shade trees and flowers. In the native villages the dwellings are much like those in Samoa, though a trifle better, perhaps. The side walls are covered with plaited reeds, and the roof is thatched with palm leaves securely fastened. In the lowlands it is customary to build a platform of rock upon which the house stands and into which the foundation poles are set. This is done for two reasons: when a typhoon sweeps over the islands, the lowland coast is sometimes flooded; moreover, the wind blows with such terrific force that none but the most strongly built house will withstand it.