COMMODORE GOODENOUGH.

Globe, Volume III, Issue 229, 4 March 1875, Page 3

COMMODORE GOODENOUGH.

It was mentioned in the news by the last mail (says the Argus) that Commodore Goodenough had received the thanks of the Colonial Office for his services in Fiji, and that he was about to be raised to the rank of a first-class commodore. The services referred to are those performed in connection with the obtaining of the first cession of the islands to Great Britain. It may not be remembered at this distance of time that Commodore Goodenough while prosecuting his inquiries as Imperial Commissioner, in conjunction with Mr Consul Layard, spent five months in Fiji, including the whole of the worst season. During that period he took his 1600-ton ship, the Pearl, into almost every part of the group, steering her under canvas through intricate reef passages and over coral-studded seas, on many parts of which the most experienced settlers will not trust their little schooners. No one could have been more thorough and painstaking in his inquiries than was Commodore Goodcnough. He interviewed planters and others on almost every island on which there are white settlers; he ascended the principal rivers to the highest point at which they are navigable, thus piercing to the centre of the large island of Viti Levu, and he performed many toilsome journeys on foot, in order to judge from personal observation of the condition and prospects of the country. No other visitor to the group ever saw so much of it in so short a. time. The report to the Imperial Government, which was drawn up jointly by the commissioners, was an able exposition of the condition and prospects of the country, and it dealt in a fair spirit with the remarkable political complications of the time. The Pearl, during her adventurous peregrinations in Fijian waters, encountered one hurricane, in which her stern ports were stove in, on which occasion the commodore had sft of water in his cabin, but she rode it out successfully, and the ship finally left the group without carrying away any lasting reminiscences of treacherous rock or coral. No one will be better pleased than the white residents of Fiji to hear that the services and abilities of Commodore Goodenough, have not been altogether left unrecognised.