JOTTING'S BY THE WAY.

Western Star, Issue 156, 2 September 1876, Page 6

JOTTING'S BY THE WAY.

(BY A RITRRTONTAN) XT.—Amusements, and Other Things. There are no cattle in Kaudavu, and consequently fresh heel is not obtainable there. * We believe there are a few head on the island of Tandromu, but they were never brought to market, for some reason which we never heard explained. An enterprising planter had put some sheep on Kgaloa, but they had all perished, so that fresh mutton was as scarce an article in the country as beef. The Fijian fowls are small scraggy birds which live chiefly in the bush, and have almost lost the habits of domestic poultry. There are wild ducks in the creeks, owls and pigeons in the bush, and parrots of a large size and gorgeous plumage ; but they are not often scared by the gun, if we are to judge from the confidence and outward composure with which they allowed us to approach them as they curiously eyed us from their perch in the trees. We saw two or three varieties of butterfly, but none of them with the brilliant and gaudy colours which we expected to find there. The lizards that kept constantly darting across our path ■were beautifully marked, and the tail was always of a lustrous delicate hue. Small white ants swarmed everywhere —across the table, over the yams, into the sugar, and their corpses floated in @ur steaming tea —they penetrated everywhere, like Pharoah’s flies and frogs. If we attempted to slaughter them we had to give it up after a while, for we found it would bo an endless work. Crowds came up continually, walking in lively procession over the bodies of the slain, and so wo allowed them to come and go as the fancy took them. Cockroaches, too, pried into everything —into our portmanteau, into our pockets even, and nibbled away, hugely gratified, at all our papers. Hungry mosquitoes buzzed about our ears perpetually, and fat, lazy flies preyed upon us all the day. The spiders —huge creatures with great fat bodies, white above and brown underneath—flung great strong webs from branch to branch, and in some cases from tree to tree. We were gratified to see that, and wished the flies that haunted us would all move off in the direction of the strongest and subtlest web. They tell us that Kero wished all the Roman people had just one neck, that he might have the satisfaction of slaying them all with one single blow. He was not gratified in that wish of his, neither were we in regard to the Fijian flies that so incessantly tormented ns. It was no uncommon thing to find land crabs on a pilgrimage over a hill. They looked excessively odd, carrying their shell high up in air. On coming to a slippery place on the brow of of the hill they sometimes lost their foothold and rolled over and over to the bottom. After a pause their claws, which had been pulled in, reappeared, and then they proceeded on their way. They make homes for themselves under the ground, into which they quickly disappear when anv danger threatens them. We saw a species of land crab with small brown body and two great yellow claw r s, not unlike leaves at a distance. They attracted our attention, and taking them for flowers we walked towards them, intending to examine them closely. But as we approached them they vanished away, and we found that they had secreted themselves in deep holes, which gave the ground the appearance of having been drilled. We gave chase to an amphibious creature which seemed to be balf-lizard and balf-fish, from one to three inches in length. It had two great goggling e} r es which almost met on the top of its head, and had feet like fins and tail like a fish; it went indifferently on land and water. We looked for the “ animated leaf ” of which the ancient historian speaks. We think it was in the sixteenth century that travellers returned to England and told the people there of a marvellous tree which grew in tropical latitudes. “As soon as the leaf of that tree,” they said, “falls to the ground it walks away.” Englishmen laughed at them, and said it was all “ a traveller’s tale,” But the animated leaf turns out to be a veritable insect, so like in appearance to a withered leaf that, without close inspection, it is not easy to distinguish one from the other. We saw one that bad come from Fiji in the collection of a friend in Melbourne, but with all our searching we did not succeed in se-, curing one in Kandavu. Beautifully, tinted flowers grew at our feet, but there was not a scented one among them all. (To he continued.)