Page:The Boy Travellers in Australasia.djvu/176

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152
THE BOY TRAVELLERS IN AUSTRALASIA

A COAST SCENE IN KANDAVU.

teenth and twenty-second parallels of south latitude, and the meridians of 177° west and 175° east longitude, and scattered over an area of ocean some two hundred miles from north to south, and three hundred from east to west. Its exact extent is not known, as there has been no complete survey of the islands; one is now in progress under the direction of the colonial government, but it will take some time for its completion. Surveying in Feejee is slow and difficult work, owing to the dense tropical vegetation that is found everywhere.

The first island of importance which was sighted by our friends was Kandavu, the fourth largest of the group and containing something like 10,000 inhabitants. As they expected to see it later, they did not stop there, and the youths contented themselves by studying its well-wooded slopes and fertile valleys, and the towering head of Mount Washington 3000 feet high on its western side. The captain told them that Kandavu was the stopping-place of the mail-steamers on their way between San Francisco and Australia, as it was more convenient and less dangerous for them than either Suva or Levuka. He added that it abound-