314 A NATURALIST ON THE "CHALLENGER 



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young Mbau chief of course understood these things, and also 

 thoroughly understood the working of my central fire breech- 

 loading gun, he having one of his own at Mbau. Most of the 

 chiefs have good English fowling-pieces and rifles. 



After a long delay, and constant promises of a commencement, 

 the dance was begun in a flat oblong open space in the village, 

 which had a raised bank on two sides of it, on which the spec- 

 tators assembled. As it got dark, bunches of reeds were lighted 

 and held up around by girls to light up the dance, for the moon 

 did not come up till late. 



Only the young men, all visitors at Livoni, and belonging to 

 the army, danced. We waited on, hour after hour, for the girls 

 to commence, but they took so long in decorating themselves 

 and getting ready, that after four hours' delay we were obliged 

 to leave in a canoe which we hired for a dollar to make the 

 journey to Levuka by sea. 



We had no sooner left than the girls commenced dancing, 

 and they probably waited for us to leave. I saw exactly the 

 same dance as that performed by the young men executed after- 

 wards in Yiti Levu, many of the performers even being the 

 same ; I will therefore describe it further on. 



We started in the canoe in the tidal part of the Livoni River 

 at about 10 p.m., and it being low tide, and there being no wind, 

 the canoe had to be poled the whole way down the river, and 

 along the shore, except for short stretches, where deep water 

 compelled the men to paddle. We had imagined that we had 

 only five miles or so to go, but found tnat the river on which we 

 were came out on the coast of Ovalau, beyond the end of the 

 adjacent island of Moturiki, or almost at the very opposite side 

 of Ovalau from Levuka. We stretched ourselves on the small 

 outrigger platform of the canoe, but the motion was too irregular 

 and the bed too unsteady to allow of much sleep. It was 

 not till half-past 4 a.m., that we reached Lieut. Suckling's 

 schooner. 



At 6 a.m., on the same day, July 31st, I started on a cruise 

 in one of the ship's boats, called the barge, to the island of Mbau, 

 and the Wai Levu, with a party which was to join the ship 

 again at Kandavu. 



