Note 54 — Chapter VII

This was the Fijian deluge. There are traditions of great floods within historical times. One of them, about 1793, purged the land of the great Lila epidemic. The waters rose over the housetops; hundreds were swept away, and the silt left by the receding waters raised the alluvial flats of the Rewa river several feet, a statement that is borne out by the fact that a network of mangrove roots underlies the alluvial soil at a depth of four or five feet. This flood was preceded by a great cyclone. Traditions of great floods are preserved by almost every primitive people.