WARS OF THE FEEJEES 



flourishing their clubs and spears in all the attitudes of 

 war to the music of the loud war-songs, and you have 

 before you a very common scene among these savages. 

 They are now ready for the battle, and are engaged in 

 the war-dance, looking and acting more like a band of 

 fiends from the world of darkness than human beings. . . . 



" The Feejees are engaged in almost constant wars. 

 The people living on the seacoast have usually an upper 

 town or citadel, built on the top of some high hill or 

 mountain peak, to which they betake themselves in case 

 of an attack from sea. You descry these towns from a 

 long distance, situated on some almost inaccessible sum- 

 mit, where there is barely room enough to plant their 

 houses. At one place we found that the son of an old 

 chief had formed a party and rebelled against his father; 

 and the old chief, for the safety of himself and his adher- 

 ents, had fled to the mountain town, which was perched 

 like a bird's nest in the very top of a peak a thousand 

 feet high. Our captain, after a few days, succeeded in 

 getting the son and father aboard ship, and obtained a 

 promise of reconciliation. The father was glad to stop 

 fighting, and warmly welcomed his son again to his affec- 

 tions. But we had left them only a short time before we 

 learnt that the war had been renewed. We lay at anchor 

 for nearly a month off a large and populous town on one 

 of the islands, and became quite interested in the chief 

 and his people. Presents were often exchanged. He 

 gave us large tortoises and pigs, bananas and other kinds 

 of fruit ; and we gave him knives and hatchets, and cotton 

 cloth, which they value much. I was often out with them 

 in their canoes, sailing around the coral reefs. Since 

 leaving there, we have heard that the place has been en- 

 tirely laid waste, and the people either massacred or 

 driven to the mountains and all this because the chief 

 refused the king of the islands his daughter for a wife. 



" The natives stand in constant dread of one another, 

 and usually go armed even in their daily intercourse. 

 They have little regard for life, and the most trifling 

 thing will induce them to commit murder; and this is 

 true throughout the Pacific where there are no mission- 

 aries to teach them better. At the Navigator Islands, a 

 native acknowledged to us that he had killed an Ameri- 

 can sailor for his jacket. Another, for as good a reason, 



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