PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION G. 621k 
have a curious fashion of sounding a ‘“ w”* after the “k,” so that 
“ Na ka ko ya” of Bau would be “ Na kwa kwo ya” at Namosi. 
Similar words to those spoken on the coast are sometimes used 
in a somewhat different sense. At Bau they say “ vondo,” of the 
act of going on board a canoe. In the hills of Serua “vondo” is 
applied to the act of ascending a hill. Of course, the same action 
of the leg is involved in each instance. Words, too, of an innocent 
meaning at the eastern end are vilely significant in the interior 
of the country. One remarkable fact may be touched in this 
connection, that the mountain people have a word for the sea, 
“ tathi,” which is allied to, if not identical with, a similar word 
found all through Polynesia, but nowhere else in Fiji.t They, too, 
have words of their own for introduced animals, where the tribes 
of the littoral and smaller islands have only names derived from 
the European, such as ‘“‘nggou,” the mountaineer’s name for pig, 
which everywhere else in the group is “ vuaka,” from “ porker.” 
Their villages were mostly perched on most inaccessible peaks 
and precipices, very romantic to look at, but, as I found from 
experience, rather distressing to gain. These eyries were skilfully 
fortified with palisades and galleries for sharpshooters, which, 
with their well-chosen strategic position, rendered some of them 
traditionally impregnable; and until the introduction of Euro- 
pean arms of precision, and the leadership of English officers, 
they were never taken. I have even seen fortified places on a 
plain so surrounded by moats, where the mud was armed with. 
stakes and split bamboos, and so encompassed with clay ramparts 
and stout palisades line within line, that the taking of them in 
purely native warfare was a very tedious or very fatal under- 
taking. I saw one village of the tribe of Navunanggumu, called 
Waini makutu (water of content), where the mountain stream 
had been most ingeniously diverted into the circular moat, in 
which it was swirling round the town on its onward progress 
through the country to the sea, and thus forming a perpetual 
defence to the people. An officer in the English army, who had 
to take some of these forts of the hillmen, expressed to me his 
surprise at the skill and science of the engineering they displayed. 
Covered galleries and lanes, and curious platforms for sentinels 
and marksmen, were also features in these works. Some of these 
mountain strongholds J found had suggestive names, such as 
‘Na Vere” (The Plot), “Na Laba” (The Murder), “ Lawaki’ 
(Cunning), while the inhabitants, male and female, rejoiced in 
appellations curious, terrible, or obscene. The history of the 
people here is crystallised in their names. On the other hand, I 
observed that many of the mountain villages were poetically 
called after trees, “‘ Namoli,” “Na Vunibua,” ‘ Nakuluva.” 
* This is the sound which is written g by the Melanesian Mission. It isa queer compound. 
of kpw or kbw, the por b varying in distinctness, sometimes quite inaudible. 
+ Excepting in one or two places on the coast. 
