ANCESTOR-WORSHIP AMONG THE FIJIANS. 673 



or pandanus tree, and from this hut or the profusion of this tree 

 the mountain took its name of Nakauvadra. Here Lutunasoba- 

 soba lived several years, and when at last he felt his end to be 

 near he summoned his children around him and gave them his 

 dying commands, ordering them to separate and settle in different 

 parts of the wide land he had discovered. Under these conditions 

 Fiji was peopled, and the greater part of the saga is taken up with 

 the wanderings of these children. Besides being the dwelling 

 place of their gods, Nakauvadra Mountain was the first circle of 

 the Fijian inferno, the point of departure for the unseen world 

 that lay to the westward. Nearly all South Sea islanders point to 

 some spot on their island where the spirits of the dead leap into the 

 ocean to be ferried over to the world of shades. These " jumping- 

 off places " (thombothombo) are generally steep cliffs facing the 

 place whence tradition says the race originally came. Whatever 

 may become of the soul hereafter, to Nakauvadra it must first be- 

 take itself before leaping into the ocean. From the populous dis- 

 trict of the Lower Rewa there is but one path to the Nakauvadra 

 Mountain, called the " Sala ni Yalo " (Path of the Shades). Chance 

 led to its discovery, or rediscovery, if it is true that Europeans had 

 before noticed it. Last year a surveyor was sent to traverse the 

 boundaries of lands claimed by the tribe of Namata. His native 

 guides led him along a high ridge, the watershed between the river 

 Rewa and the eastern coast of the island. As they cut their way 

 through the undergrowth that clothed the hilltop, he noticed that 

 the path was almost level, and seldom more than two feet wide, 

 and that the ridge joined hilltop to hilltop in an almost horizontal 

 line. The surveyor had a patch of the undergrowth cleared away 

 and found that without doubt the embankments were artificial. 

 Following the line of the ridge, the valleys had been bridged with 

 Jbanks thirty or forty feet high. The level path thus made ex- 

 tended, so the natives said, clear to Nakauvadra, fifty miles away. 

 For a people destitute of implements this was a remarkable work. 

 I thought at first that this was a fortification on a gigantic scale, 

 for Fijians never undertake any great work except for defense, 

 under the spur of a pressing necessity. It could not be a road, 

 because the ancient Fijians preferred to go straight over obstacles, 

 like the soldier ants in Africa, that climb trees rather than go 

 round them. The old men at Bau, whom I questioned, knew 

 nothing of its history except that it was called " The Path of the 

 Shades," and that it was an extension of one of the spurs of the 

 Kauvadra Mountain. I asked for guides to take me over it, and 

 they chose three gray-headed elders of the Namata tribe. We 

 started in heavy rain. My guides were reticent at first, but as we 

 went on the spirit of the place seemed to possess them, and at each 

 turn of the path they stopped to describe to me the particular dan- 



TOL. XL VII. 56 



