This pamphlet provides a short description of a tour in Fiji made by Sir Arthur Hamilton-Gordon, the first governor of the British colony of the islands. It was presented to Queen Victoria in December 1875, arriving in the Royal Library in November 1876. In his letter to Jane Loftus, Marchioness of Ely, a Lady of the Bedchamber and one of the Queen's closest friends, Gordon explains he was sending the book because 'I think Her Majesty may possibly be interested by the accompanying sketches of her newest posession and its inhabitants'; he then goes on to explain that the artist, from whose paintings the photographs in the book were taken, was another Arthur Gordon, who, after his father 'cast off his legitimate wife & childen' had been living with him as an adopted son.

Fiji came under British control in January 1875 and Gordon had been appointed governor following the separation of the colony from New South Wales that July. He would remain in post until 1880 and was responsible for cementing British control in the islands.

On 12 May 1879, while on a visit to Windsor Castle prior to his leaving the governership, Gordon and his wife, Lady Rachel Gordon (née Shaw Lefevre), dined with Queen Victoria. The Queen recounted in her journal the conversation: 'Sir A. Gordon spoke of Fiji with much interest, & so did L^y Gordon. For 6 months, the heat was very great & she went to Sydney for change of air (as far as from here to America) The other 6 months, the climate was very pleasant. The Fijians were wonderfully nice people.'

The Queen's description, however, did not reflect the effects of British rule in Fiji. Immediately on taking office, Gordon had been faced with opposition in the interior of Viti Levi, Fiji’s main island. Colonial forces pursued a scorched earth policy, burning villages and forcing the resettlement of hundreds of Fijians to towns on the coast. From 1876, Gordon further consolidated British rule by adopting chiefly titles; enacting laws to prevent Fijians from owning, buying or selling land and establishing the Great Council of Chiefs, a group of leaders of local communtities which would help to advise the governor. This council sat in one form or another until its disestablishment in 2012.
Later in his governorship, Gordon introduced an indenture system that brought hundreds of Indian labourers to Fiji to work on sugarcane plantations. Many of the 61,000 Indians that eventually arrived in the country by the end of the scheme in 1916 chose to remain at the end of their service; transport back to India having had to be self-funded. Fijians of Indian descent currently make up around 40% of Fiji’s present-day population.