St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1894-04-15

e.
handing officer to secure compensation TOR
the stolen property which he carefully COM
puted to amount to 5001.3S.
The history of how this claim was subse-
quently increased to S45, 900 does not make
pleasant reading for an American anxious
for his country to stand well abroad. Ad-
vantage was taken of another small ROBBERY
by the natives, and American naval officers
forced the Fijian king, Cacobau, to sign doc
ument acknowledging the claim, but he
frankly said he had no money with which to
pay it. This go cd opportunity for the
Englishman to get in his own peculiarly fine
work. number of Melbourne spectators,
learning of the kings position, hurried up to
Louka and told Cacobau that that they would
give him the money to pay the claim,
provided he ceded to them 100000 acres of
the most fertile part of his territory The
barbarian monarch consented. England be-
came involved in the questionable transac-
ton of some of her Australian subjects, and
in the end she assumed the sovereignty Of
Fiji, and so became mistress of one of the
richest and most promising group of islands
in all the Pacific.
Wherever have been through Polynesia I
have found among the mercantile, and more
particularly among the maritime classes,
strong prejudice against the missionaries.
One hears this in Hawaii, where it is claimed
the missionaries have devoted themselves to
fortune getting instead Of soul saving, and
the covert opposition and dislike seem to in
crease all the way down to the country of the
Maoris in New Zealand. My own experience,
however, does not warrant me in believing
that the dislike for the missionaries is based
on reason or justice. The islands Of Fiji
offer in themselves to-day the best possible
evidence of what the missionaries have done
and can do; I refer to their civilizing rather
than Outstanding, influence.
Before giving an idea of the products of
these islands and of trade in which America
should have share, it may be well to briefly
consider the redeemed and regenerated FL
jan of to-day, the man who works the farms,
builds the roads and sails the vessels that
are fast lifting this magnificent group of
islands into position of first Importance in
the South Pacific. 81 81
The natives of Fiji are, fine, manly peo-
pie; the complexion is dark olive, the ply
sique is that ola race of athletes, and the
average height is five feet nine, or two inches
more than that of the average American.
Some OF these men, notably the chiefs or ro-
kos, stand six feet and over, and are models
OF graceful movement and fine proportion.
The women, when young, have good forms.
and some have really pretty faces, but they
soon lose their figures, and at middle age
are wrinkled, gross and repulsive.
Both sexes wear their hair long. It is
black and inclined to be curly or kinky. It
is gummy and tied in tufts or cut into fan
tastic shapes, every man and woman aiming
to have his or her hair as different in makeup
from the other as possible. Even harder to
eradicate than cannibalism was polygamy,
and it is whispered that TO this day many of
the chiefs, nominally very good Christians,
still secretly adhere, in practice as well as