They Were Usually Prisoners Captured In The Rewa District, Also A Few White Men.

They were cut open alive and their hearts torn out, and their bodies were then cut up for cooking on the rock, which I noticed was worn quite smooth.

Sometimes they would boil a man alive in a huge cauldron.

While staying at Namosi the "Buli" gave me some lessons in throwing native spears, and in using the bow. Whilst practising the latter I narrowly missed, by a few inches, shooting a woman who stepped out suddenly from behind a hut.

I was out most of the day shooting pigeons in the woods close by, accompanied by the "Buli," Masirewa, and several boys. The woods were full of a wonderfully beautiful creeper, a delicate pink and white CLERODENDRON which grew in large bunches; there was also a very pretty HOYA (wax flower) scrambling up the trees. We filled ourselves with the juicy pink fruit of the "kavika," or what is generally known as the Malacca or rose-apple. The trees were plentiful in the woods, grew to a large size, and were literally loaded with fruit, the fallen fruit resembling a pink carpet. Another very good fruit was the "wi," a golden fruit about the size of a large mango. I have seen both cultivated in the West Indies.

On my return to the village I had a most interesting interview with these ex-cannibals, one old and two middle-aged men, thanks to Masirewa, my interpreter. He first asked them how they liked human flesh, and they all shouted "Venaka, venaka!" (good). Like the natives of New Guinea, they said it was far better than pig; they also declared that the legs, arms and palms of the hands were the greatest delicacies, and that women and children tasted best. The brains and eyes were especially good. They would never eat a man who had died a natural death. They had eaten white man; he was salty and fat, but he was good, though not so good as "Fiji man." One of them had tasted a certain Mr. - - , and the meat on his legs was very fat. They chopped his feet off above the boots, which they thought were part of him, and they boiled his feet and boots for days, but they did not like the taste of the boots. They often kept some of their prisoners and fattened them up, and when the day came for killing one, it was the women of Namosi's duty to take him down to the large stone by the river, where they cut him open alive and tore his heart out. Lastly, I asked if they would still like to eat man if they got the chance, and they were not afraid of being punished, and there was no hesitation in their reply of "Io" (yes), uttered with one voice like the yelp of a hungry wolf, and it seemed to me that their eyes sparkled. They were certainly a very obliging lot of cannibals.

Cannibalism is, of course, practically extinct now in Fiji, but in recent years I am told that there, have been a few odd cases far back in the mountains. On one occasion a man told his wife to build an oven and that he was going to cook her. This she did, and he then killed, cooked, and ate her. Whilst in Fiji I met an Englishman who in the seventies had tasted human meat at a native feast, he believing it was pig, and at the time he thought it was very good. I was told that in the old days when they wanted to know whether a body was cooked enough they looked to see if the head was loose. If the head fell off it was thought to be "cooked to perfection," but I will not vouch for this story being correct.

I gave the "Buli" a box of matches, and he seemed as pleased as if it was a purse of gold; they light all their fires here by wood friction, Some of the pet pigs around here were very oddly marked with stripes and spots of brown, black and white. Whilst in Fiji I often came across natives far from any village who were being followed by pet pigs, as we in England might be followed by dogs. Masirewa amused me more each day by his cheek and self-assurance. Once I asked him what he said to the chief of the hut we were in, and he replied: "Oh! I tell him Get out, you black fellow.' "

We left Namosi early the next morning, a large crowd seeing us off, and I was sorry to bid farewell to one of the most beautiful spots in this wide world. We passed through the villages of Nailili and Waivaka, where I called at the chiefs' huts and held a kind of "at home" for a few minutes, the people simply swarming in to look at me. The "Buli" of Namosi had sent messengers on in front to give notice of my approach, and at each village they had the inevitable hot yams ready to eat, which Masirewa made the most of. At the entrance to each village there was usually a palisade of bamboo or tree-fern trunks, and here a crowd of girls and children would often be waiting, and on my approach they would set up loud yells and scamper off, till I began to think that I must look a very ferocious kind of "papalangai." At Dellaisakau the natives looked a very wild lot. Some of the men had black patches all over their faces, and some had great masses of hair shaped like a parasol. One or two of the women wore only the old-time small aprons of coconut fibre.

We followed the Waiandina River amid very fine scenery. The sloping hills were covered with woods, and we passed under a canopy of bamboo, the large trumpet flowers of the white DATURA, tree-ferns, large "ivi," "dakua" and "kavika" trees loaded with ferns and fine orchids in flower.

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