No White Man But The Government Agent Had
Been Here For Several Years, I Was Told.
Thirty-odd years ago they
would not have been satisfied to "look only," but would have wished
to taste,
And many of the present inhabitants would have made chops
of me, and were no doubt peering out of their huts to see if I was
fat or lean, and wishing for days gone by but not forgotten. Isolated
cases of cannibalism still occur in out-of-the-way parts of Fiji, and
it is only fear of the government that stops them, otherwise these
mountaineers would at once return to cannibalism. Masirewa came out
and stood with folded arms among a large crowd talking about me, and no
doubt taking all the credit for my appearance, and staring at me as if
he had never seen me before, so that I felt much inclined to kick him.
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.
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