In The Evening, As I Skinned The Parrot I Had Shot, Masirewa Told Me How One Man Had Said That He Would Like To Eat The Parrot, And That He Had Replied:

"And the white man too." There was a large and very interested crowd around me as I worked, and they were very much astonished when told that the birds in England were different from those in Fiji, and I was inundated with childish questions about England.

Masirewa seemed to be trying to pass himself off on these simple mountaineers as a chief, and was clearly beginning to give himself airs, so that when he started to eat with the "Buli" and myself, I had to snub him, and told him sharply to clean my gun and eat afterwards.

I slept the next morning till seven o'clock, and Masirewa told me that the natives could not understand my sleeping so late, and that they thought I was drunk on "angona," of which I had partaken the night before. "Angona" is the same as "kava" in Samoa, and is the national beverage in Fiji. Masirewa now only wore a "sulu" and discarded his singlet. I suppose it was a case of "In Rome do as Rome does," but he certainly looked better in the dark skin he wore at his birth. I was shown the large rock by the river where more than a thousand people had been killed for their cannibal feasts. 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.

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