The Lau Islands (Fiji) and their Fairy Talcs and Folk - lore.
By T. R. St. Johnston. (Times Book Company.)—" Tusitala " would have liked these South Sea folk-tales, related to the author by old people in the Lau group between Fiji and Tonga. The first one is perhaps the best, relating the sore trials of a man who was left alone on an island inhabited by demons. Every night they came and played ball with him, tossing him to and fro, and all his attempts to hide from them were vain, until he appealed to the spirit-king. There is another very strange tale of a duel between the ghost of a dead warrior and the god whose magic had caused the warrior's death ; the god is worsted in the fray. The author, as Commissioner of the Lau Islands, which are small, numerous, and widely scattered, had good opportunities of studying the islanders, and his admirable Introduction shows how these folk-tales throw light on the migra- tions of Pacific) peoples.
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