THE FIJI ISLANDS.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 8, Issue 399, 2 August 1866, Page 3

THE FIJI ISLANDS.

The Bendigo Advertiser publishes the following letter from the pen of a correspondent in the Fiji Islands. As this group is month by month being brought more prominently into notice, a description of its resources, population, &c., will be interesting to our readers:— Rewa River, 15th April, 1866. Matters have, with some few exceptions, progressed as favorably in Fiji as we could hope for. We are as yet hut a small community of whites, and of course cannot show any very extensive results ; yet the group has produced upwards of 700 tons of cotton during the past season, being more than doable that of the former; iu fact, just in proportion as we have an increase of planters so will our exports increase. We have many varieties of cotton—the Sea Islands, Brazilian, and five or six others. All kinds seem to thrive equally well. Wild cotton is common upon the Ba and Ba coasts. The Sea Islands and Brazilian, are, however, chiefly cultivated. The schooner Magellan Cloud, from Sydney, brings some fourteen or fifteen passengers, many of whom will remain in Fiji. Our islands and their capabilities are little known to Europeans j but I confidently look forward to the time when every foot of cultivable laud will he covered with the cotton or coffee tree. The certainty of a crop, its speedy growth immense returns, only require to be shown, when the AngloSaxon race will number their hundreds in Fiji. Only those who are the early settlers, however, can expect to procure their lands at nominal prices in our present neighborhood, for if ever the chief of ‘ Bau ’ should succeed in conquering the mountaineers (of which there is little probability,) the land will be witheld from sale, as he is very jealous of the increasing influence of the white man; yet there are other and extensive tracts iu Fiji equally suitable for cotton or coffee growing, over which he will never have control, and which can be purchased at from Is 6d to 2s per acre. Our past summer has been very wet, and we experienced quite a drawback from a severe equinoctial storm, accompanied with a heavy flood. M any whose plantations were upon the flat lands, have entirely lost their crops. But such a flood, I am happy to say, does not often occur, it being more than twenty-five years since the like was known. Wo are therefore, not in. the least discouraged, but all intend planting again in the coming months of September and October. In the incentive we can plant our Indian corn, and garner the crop in time to plant cotton on the same ground. Three crops of Indian corn, can be raised per annum ; some we planted in July last gave us green ears sixty days, and in seventyfive was gathered ripe. It was planted three feet apart, and produced at the rate of 170 bushels per acre; the stalks measured from ten to thirteen feet. We find it. good for our plantation hands, and need not depend hereafter upon the Fijians to sell food for our men. The diseases of these islands are very few, dysentery being the only fatal one, which is chiefly confined to the Ovalau, and most prevalent during the rainy or summer season ; with a proper attention, however, to living upon landing, no person need fear it, and if attended to iu time it can in most cases bo cured. There is another disease common to children, called called by the natives‘ooko* (ihoko.) It breaks out iu,sores upon the body, is painful but not dangerous, and excepting elephantiasis (too rarely seen to be worth naming) these are the only diseases as yet knofrn in Fiji Our winter is just commencing, and we hail her approach with gladsome hearts. Fruits of many kinds will soon await us (oranges we are surfeited with now,) rain will cease, mosquitos disappear, when nothing can mar the pleasures of a planters life.