FIJI ISLANDS. 321 



young pig and a couple of fowls all alive, a most welcome 

 present. They were killed and consumed within an hour of 

 their arrival. The islet on which we slept is made up of blocks 

 of coral, weathered and bored by various animals, piled up by 

 the waves. The blocks near tide-mark are so blackened by 

 exposure, that I took them at first for vesicular lava. 



Around Mbau are extensive shallow mud flats, the mud 

 being brought down by the Wai Levu. Across these flats we 

 sailed next morning, with scarcely a breath of wind, though our 

 pilot, whom we christened " Joe," kept constantly calling for a 

 breeze, using an old Fijian pilot's chant, " Come down, come 

 down, my friend from the mountains." 



As we drifted slowly away over the glassy water, the view 

 behind us was beautiful. Far away, blue in the distance, was a 

 long range of the lofty peaked mountains of Viti Levu, still the 

 abode of the Kaivolos, the long-haired mountaineers, the canni- 

 bals. Nearer lay a streak of dark green undulating low country, 

 bounded seawards by low cliffs, and showing near the coast the 

 numerous cultivated clearings of the natives. Just off the cliffs 

 of Yiti Levu lay the small island of Viwa. In the foreground 

 was the island of Mbau, with its crowded reed houses, its strange 

 stone parapets, and its green hill topped by the missionaries' 

 white house. From the centre of the village came the sound of 

 what was the old cannibal death drum, beating now for morning 

 prayers. 



There were tw T o of these drums in front of the strangers' 

 house. They are simply logs of wood, hollowed out above into 

 troughs, and supported horizontally on posts at about three feet 

 above the ground, looking like horse-troughs. One was larger 

 than another. They were beaten with two wooden billets alter- 

 nately, and gave out different low bass booming notes. Very 

 similar drums are used amongst the Melanesians, as at Efate 

 in the New Hebrides,* and at the Admiralty Islands, where 

 however they are stuck upright in the ground, and the mouths 

 of the trouQ-h-like cavities are contracted to narrow slit-like 

 openings, the trunks being hollowed out through these. The 



* "A Year in the New Hebrides," p. Ill, by F. A. Campbell. 

 Melbourne, George Roberston, 1873. 



