FIJI.

Westport Times, Volume VII, Issue 1061, 8 April 1873, Page 4

FIJI.

A correspondent of the Sydney Empire says: —" The town of Levuka is extending itself in spite of the unpromising state of matters social aod political. Trim little villas are scattered all over the side of the hill fac.ing the sea. Mr Butter's residence is iprominent amongst these ibr its pretty -situation and tastefully laid out grounds. Beach street consists chiefly of stores and grop shops—the hitter of course being in the majority. Most of

tlio buildiugs are wooden erections with here and there a native-built house of sapling's—these latter are substantial but expensive. The length of this the principal, or rather the only street worthy of the name, is about two miles. The population is provided with three churches ; the largest and most pretentious edifice is the Catholic Church, an iron building, which boasts of a spire. The Church of England stands somewhat back from the beach, it is a neat little structure. The same applies to the Wesleyan Chapel at the other end of the town, facing the pier belonging to Mr Kay's hotel. There are several of these latter ; chief among them, as to size and accommodation, is Messrs Street and Bohm's Levuka Hotel. But all have become proficient, owing to a sharp competition in catering to the vitiated tastes of an idle public, which suffers from an insatiable thirst for strong drink, and a desire for excitement and killing timeby the numerous appliances for gambling invented and introduced for the most part by the enterprising Yankee section of the community. Of an afternoon the beach presents an animated spectacle ; it is then that the female elite of the place delight in promenading the pebbly footpath regardless of the inevitable destruction of the bewildering high-heeled bottines of the period. Here you seen a bevy of damsels arrayed in the latest fashions from Melbourne or Sydney, and immediately in their wake follow a troop of native women in their scanty toilet, carrying huge baskets of yams or bananas on their heads, and in some cases having one or two picanninies slung on their backs in native tappa."