I often accompanied Ratu
Lala on his fishing excursions, and he would often recount to me
many of his escapades. On one occasion he told me that he had put
a fish-hook through the lip of his jester, a little old man of the
name of Stivani, and played him about with rod and reel like a fish,
and had made him swim about in the water until he had tired him out,
and then he added, "I landed the finest fish I ever got."
I added a good many interesting birds to my collection during my
stay here, among them a dove of intense orange colour, one of the
most striking birds I have ever seen. Plant life here was exceedingly
beautiful and interesting, especially high up in the mountains, palms,
PANDANUS, cycads, crotons, ACALYPHAS, LORANTHS, aroids, FREYCINETIAS,
ferns and orchids being strongly represented, and among the latter
may be mentioned a fine orange DENDROBIUM and a pink CALANTHE. I
found in flower a celebrated creeper, which Ratu Lala had told me
to look out for. It had very showy red, white and blue flowers,
and in the old days Ratu Lala told me that the Tongan people would
come over in their canoes all the way from the Tonga Islands, nearly
four hundred miles away, simply to get this flower for their dances,
and when gathered, it would last a very long time without fading.
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