mop-like heads of hair, broad noses, and full lips betoken Papuan ancestry of remote African origin, and probably the earliest inhabitants were of purer Negroid blood than those of the present, for there has been a constant admixture with the Polynesians, who, being good navigators, have peopled the remote islands of the outer Pacific. For ages this admixure has been checked through the practice of the Fijians of killing and eating strangers who were stranded upon their shores, and it is interesting to see that it is only in the small islands of the Lau group of the Fiji archipelago that a decided mingling of the Papuan and Polynesian elements is observed. These Lau islands are set one after another, like the leeward isles of the West Indies, in a long sweeping crescent along the eastern edge of the archipelago, and are only about 270 miles west of Tonga, hence the Tongans, under their great chief Maafu, overran them, killing the men and capturing the women,
