The future world in their opinion is much the same as the present. But concerning the doctrines of the Feejeean religion it is scarcely possible to learn anything. The people know nothing, and the priests dislike to communicate their knowledge. Burotu is the name of their place of departed spirits, and is said to be a most delightful abode; but the Feejeeans believe that, except for great chiefs, it is very difficult to pass into it. The only way by which an inferior man can hope to gain admission is by telling a lie to the god, and proclaiming himself a chief with so much apparent truthfulness that he is allowed to enter. In a large number of the islands, a particular town in Vanua Levu is thought to be the entrance to the spirit world. The houses in this town are built with their doors opposite to each other, so that the shade may pass through without interruption. The inhabitants speak in low tones, and if at a little distance communicate their thoughts by signs. Sneezing is ominous, and varies in its luck, according as it proceeds from the right or left nostril. The temples, bure, or fully bure kaloo (anything wonderful, whether good or bad, is denoted by kaloo), are built on a mound of earth, and found in every village, and some of the villages have many of them.

No labor is thought too great for the decoration of a bure. Their marvellous skill in plaiting sinnet is best shown in such a building; every beam, post, and pil-lar is entirely covered with the most beautiful patterns, chiefly in black and red; even large cords are made of sinnet and hung- in festoons from the eaves. But these bures, though considered temples, are mostly used for secular purposes. Visitors are generally quartered in them, and the principal men of the village often make the bure their sleeping place. When a chief wishes to propitiate a deity he offers a great quantity of food in his temple, and inviting his friends consumes it in a general feast.-The Feejeean language belongs to the Oceanic or Malayo-Polynesian type. The letters may be easily represented with the English alphabet, omitting h, x, and z. It has the same nine parts of speech as the English. The articles are ko or o, koi or oi, a or na, and ai or nai. All adjectives are used as abstract nouns, as vinaka, good, and also goodness; but the verbs are the most fruitful source of nouns. All nouns used without taganne, a male, or alewa, a female, are of common gender; also nouns of relationship, as luvena, a son or daughter, uatina, a husband or wife.

The number of nouns is shown by prefixing numerals, or by the personal pronoun used in relation to them. There are some nouns to express certain things by tens, hundreds, and thousands only. Case is shown by particles preceding the nouns. Vaka is a particle much used; it changes nouns into adjectives, as uravura, the world, vakavuravura, like the world; it changes adjectives into adverbs, as vinaka, good, vakvinaka, well; with nouns it expresses the possession of the thing, as vale, a house, vakavale, having a house; and it changes adjectives into verbs, and intransitive into transitive verbs. Some verbs have different terminations when affecting different objects, as sokota na vanua, to sail to land, soko-taJca na waga, to sail the canoe. There are many reduplicated forms of verbs. Repetition of words is used to a great extent, and implies either frequency or intensity: sa vosa vosa vosa, talk, talk, talk, means always talking. Prepositions and conjunctions are few, but interjections are very numerous. Expletives, or ornamental particles, abound. Feejeean syntax is extremely simple. A proper accentuation is also very easily obtained. The accent is invariably on the last syllable, or last but one.

A different quantity often alters the sense of a Feejeean word.-The Feejee group, which now contains, exclusive of coral islets, an area of about 5,500 square miles of dry land, is believed to have spread at the period when the corals began to grow over at least 15,000 square miles. Viti Levu and Vanua Levu are supposed to have formed a single island, which subsidence has separated by inundating the low intermediate area. The natives present a mixture of Papuan and Polynesian characters. Ethnology offers nothing of importance concerning them, for the Papuan race is one of the least known sections of mankind. The natives know nothing of former immigrations; they had no intercourse with other nations, except on casual visits, and they believe that they never occupied any country but the one where they now dwell. Even among the many independent states in the group there is little social and commercial communication, and no political connection. Intestine quarrels and wars make up the history of the Feejees. The Dutch navigator Tasman saw the group on Feb. 6, 1643, and called it Prince William's islands, but effected no landing. On May 4, 1789, they were seen by Lieut. William Bligh, in his long and perilous boat voyage after being turned adrift from the Bounty, who gave them his own name.

The first settlement by Europeans was made by a party of escaped convicts from New South Wales in 1804. The American exploring expedition under Lieut.Wilkes, 1838-"42, first excited the interest of civilized nations in the Feejee islands'. The first British consul was appointed in 1858, and since then negotiations have been pending to put the group under the English government, on the suggestion of King Thakombau. But he was never king of Feejee, and he has long since lost the hold he formerly had upon the people and land. His reason for desiring to place the isl-ands under British rule seems to have been merely to escape a claim on the part of an American citizen named Williams, whose house was accidentally burned, and who demanded an enormous sum for destruction and spolia-tion of property." In 1869, 70 white residents petitioned the United States government to as-sume the dominion or protectorate of the isl-ands. The white population having increased, a regular government was established in 1871, and a constitution adopted. This was subsequently abolished, and the government relapsed into barbarism.

In 1S74, partly owing to the wretched state of the finances, the sovereignty of Feejee was tendered to Great Britain.-In 1835 two Wesleyan missionaries made the first attempt to introduce Christianity in Feejee; missionaries of other sects followed; and after the usual history of massacres and persecutions, the churches report a most wonderful success. There are said to be more than 900 chapels and preaching places, 1,500 day schools, a theological institute, and more than 100,000 attendants on public worship.-See Wilkes's

A Feejeean.

"United States Exploring Expedition around the World" (New York, 1856); Williams and Calvert's Fiji and the Fijians" (London, 1858; revised ed., 1870); Mrs. Smythe'sTen Months in the Fiji Islands" (London, 1864); the Rev. J. E. Wood's Uncivilized Races of the World" (Hartford, 1870); and David Ha-zlewood's Fijian and English Dictionary," containing brief hints on native customs, etc. (London, 1872).