FIJI

Evening Star, Volume IX, Issue 2572, 16 May 1871, Page 2

FIJI

By way of Newcastle and Fiji, we have Fiji advices to April 1. The damage done by the late hurricane was greater on shore than at sea. Trees were blow n down in all directions; and the dwellings at Levnka suffered severely severely. Turner’s Criterion hotel is a vast ruin, nearly the whole of it was unroofed, and the large building which he was having erected at the back of the hotel for a theatre has been thrown down. Mr Cudlip’s back store, containing, it is supposed, nearly LIOOO worth of goods was blown down. From the Ba coast we learn that the destruction was very great. In the district of Tavua, the hurricane unroofed most of the houses, whilst the cotton has been thrown down, but we believe not destroyed. A native town on the coast was partly washed and partly blown away. The natives arc giving some trouble ; and the white settlers have found it necessary to take measures for enforcing obedience to law. A case of robbery having occurred, the settlers mustered strongly, and after proper trial, the three offenders were found guilty, sentenced to twenty-five lashes and trausportati- n to a w iiulward island for three years to work on a white man’s plantation. The meeting pledged itself individually and collectively to troat every case of outrage, on the whites in the same manner, The schooner M argaret Cheosel visite I Apli on a labor cruise on IX c 22nd. While there she was attacked, twoof her crew (natives) being killed ; and the captain having a narrow escape. At Aurora Island, Mr Witherington, the mate, was massacred while purchasing cocoaiuts. A new phase of the labour trade is the employment of steamers, the Wainui having made a very successful trip of 28 days, returning with 75 men. It -was thought by many that the natives would fear a steamei, but that would not appear to be the case, the Wainui not having expei ienced any difficulty ou that account. The employment of steam in the traffic will be a great saving to the planters of both time and expense; and no doubt it will very shortly nearly supersede the cbaiterof sai iag vessels. By the arrival of the Traveller from Ka* davu, we receive the sad intelligence of the murder of Mr Achilles Underwood last Wednesday or Thursday. It appears that five of his Tamia men had been away for some time, but came b?ck, and with the other Tanna men demanded of him whether he had brought a vessel to takeithem back to Tanna. He answered them “no,” when one of them called him a liar. He struck the man, and immediately the whole of them—about 30—went into their houses, and armed themselves with tomahawks. Mr Underwood, seeing 'hatmischief was brewing, got his revolver ; and when the Tanna men attacked him, which they immediately did, he fired, but without effect; and before be could fire a second shot, they felled him with a blow from a tomahawk, aud one of them, wrenching the revolver from him, shot him with it. They then hacked him about and cut his head off. They would not allow his body to be buried on his own place, threatening if it was to exhume and eat ic.