V.] THE OCEANIC NEGROES: PAPUASIANS. 137 



new-comers are received by Nggalevu, the ghostly ruler of the 

 place. On the far side of the lake, whither no man is known to 

 have come, clouds of steam rise through another cleft, a proof 

 that Nggalevu has heard the cries of the shades who have climbed 

 an overhanging tree and called aloud to him for a sign that he is 

 there. In shade-land are trees and houses where dwell the dead, 

 though they may still visit the glimpses of the moon, and are seen 

 like fire at night, or like dead tree-fern trunks right in the path of 

 the wayfarer, who fears to go farther into the gloomy woodlands. 

 Some of these apparitions are evil-minded, and prey on the living 

 to carry them away to Lolomboetogitogi, where all live a happy if 

 an empty life, free at least from sorrow and earthly woes. 



Yet most of these Melanesians, capable of assimilating if not 

 inventing such dreams and even sublime fancies, 

 are utter savages, less cruel perhaps than some of Social 



\ Institutions. 



the full-blood Papuans, but in many respects not 

 appreciably superior to the average New Guinea native. The 

 most careful observers are unable to free them from the charge of 

 extreme treachery, head-hunting, and other atrocious practices, 

 although some allowance may still be made for these islanders, 

 long exposed to the sudden raids of white kidnappers in quest of 

 " contract " labour for the Peruvian and (formerly) the Queens- 

 land plantations. 



The extent to which cannibalism prevailed till lately in Fiji 

 may be judged from the fact that, for some offence 



Cannibalism 



against the paramount chief, a whole tribe in Viti and Head- 

 Levu was condemned to be cooked alive in ovens 

 and eaten by batches at each recurrent taro feast. A great part 

 of the population, bound by the oral common law to bide their 

 time, had thus been consumed, when the survivors were rescued 

 by the British occupation of the Archipelago in 1874. Now the 

 Fijians all profess Christianity, Protestant or Roman Catholic, 

 and the dethroned king Thakombau, who had in his time devoured 

 no inconsiderable number of his heathen subjects, became a devout 

 member of the Wesleyan congregation. 



Head-hunting, popularly supposed to be peculiar to the 

 Bornean Dyaks, has on the contrary a very wide range, from the 

 eastern Himalayas right through Malaysia to the utmost limits of 



