group into Tahitians, and Tongans, and Samoans, and Rarotongans. Through 2,000 years or more, racial characteristics have developed, and the visitor to any group can identify its inhabitants. Language, culture, religion, vary to a degree. The community life of each racial group has developed along separate lines, so that differing forms of government are evidence of separate evolution. Houses, canoes and crops, while showing a basic similarity, are individual in style. But perhaps more noticeable than social changes are the racial characteristics of physical features. It was these racial characteristics that James Siers set out to capture. He aimed his camera at those features that were typical of the island group he was visiting. Nor was he slow to realize that each ethnic group is by no means pure. The Polynesian was ever a wanderer — how else did he reach these island homes? But random canoes blown off course, organized migrations, or war parties all resulted in residence in one group by the peoples of another. Perhaps the greatest wanderers were the Tongans, for most of the other groups have legends and stories of Tongan war-parties landing in their midst, or a canoe-load arriving to seek a husband for a ‘fair princess’. Nor was this practice confined to Polynesia — there was inter-communication between Polynesia and Melanesia. The inhabitants of the southern islands of the Fiji group are more specifically Tongan in appearance, with their straight hair contrasting with the fuzzy Fijian. The northern islands, Rotuma, Gilbert and Ellice, and others, likewise show a Polynesian influence. James Siers sets out, then, to show us this Polynesia. His book is a combination of text and photographs in colour. He gives us an introductory chapter, briefly outlining the history of discovery in the South Seas — first, the explorers, Mendana and Quinos, accounting for Spanish names in the Melanesian groups. The Dutch, with Tasman as their most important, were next. Tasman's journey was to date the most southerly, and to him were credited the discoveries of Tasmania, New Zealand, the Lau Group, and Tonga. The map of these uncharted seas was filling up. After one hundred years of inactivity, suddenly the French and English appeared almost simultaneously. Wallis, Bougainville, Cook are the outstanding names in South Seas exploration. In their wake came the course of history. Traders, disease, missionaries, guns, unsettled settlement, ‘protective custody’. And so the islands of Polynesia and of Melanesia became British and French, and Spanish, and Dutch, and German, and American — and not necessarily under the aegis of their present ‘protectors’. After this ‘in-flight’ introduction, we arrive at our first island group — only this isn't a group in Polynesia (although the author defends this by claiming that ‘Polynesia’ simply means ‘many islands’. And, on examining the index, we find that we must accept this ruling, for we are to go to another group also that is ethnically and geographically not in the Polynesian triangle). Rather sensibly, James Siers takes us first to Fiji. Why not! It is our nearest island group (we cannot list Norfolk Island as a ‘group’), is almost as close to Auckland as is Invercargill, and more easily reached. Most New Zealanders at some time or another, will no doubt succumb to the blandishments of their Travel Centre, and take advantage of the quick, inexpensive holiday tours to Fiji. And the more distant traveller makes first touch-down there. Significantly, therefore, the cover picture is of the ceremonial presentation of Kava, set outside a model bure, while the first plate is that of a girl of Fiji — not a Fijian girl, but one in whom is seen the blend of Melanesia and Polynesia. So the author sets the scene, and we are introduced to the ‘crossroads of the Pacific’ in pictures and story. The text sketches in the known history of the Fijian people over the 3,000 years of their occupation of the island group; it describes some of the ceremonies and functions the tourist should not miss, discusses the social and political present, and wisely avoids an expression of opinion of Fiji's most pressing problem, the relations between Fijians and Indians. The pictures of Fiji and Fijian life represent largely the tourist point of view — yet in the selection there are only four small shots of the Indian. The pages of pictures are grouped; the Kava ceremony, scenes showing the contrast in the appearance of the ‘wet’ and ‘dry’ sides, a fish drive, typical market scenes and one or two ‘general shots’.