182 ETHNOGRAPHY. 



a sentiment of reverence for his high rank and attributes would not 

 allow it to be discontinued. 



But if the Tonga people once resided on the Feejee Islands, we 

 should expect to find some evidence of the fact at the latter group, in 

 the names of places and the traditions of the people. And in this we 

 are not disappointed. Whether the Vitians have any recollection of 

 the war of the two races, such as the Tongans retain embodied in 

 their mythology, is not known. The views which are now advanced 

 did not occur to us until after our return, and, of course, no inquiries 

 were made on the subject while we were at the islands. But many 

 facts were noted bearing incidentally upon it, and among them the 

 following may be cited, as strongly confirmatory of these opinions. 



1. On the west coast of Viti-levu, exactly at the place where our 

 hypothesis supposes the Tongans to have first established themselves 

 on that island, is a large district called Vei-Tonga, which means " to 

 Tonga" or perhaps, originally, to westward. We did not visit it, nor 

 learn any thing concerning its inhabitants. Nearly opposite to this, 

 on the east coast of the same island is a bay called Viti-levu, which 

 may, in like manner, have been the pristine seat of the Melanesian 

 emigrants, from which the name has finally been extended to the 

 whole island. 



2. We have spoken in another place of the clan or tribe called 

 Levuka, the original inhabitants of the island of Mbau, who are dis- 

 tinguished from the other Vitians by their enterprise and intelligence, 

 and carry on most of the trade between the different islands. They 

 are distinctly stated by the natives to be of Tongan descent, though 

 in appearance they do not differ from the other islanders. The prin- 

 cipal town on the island of Ovolau is also called Levuka, and the 

 people are equally remarkable for their intelligence and good dispo- 

 sition. It does not appear that there is, at present, any connexion 

 between them and the tribe mentioned above ; but the identity of 

 name and similarity of character would lead us to suspect that such a 

 connexion may have formerly existed. Another name which is 

 equally diffused in Viti is Namuka. This is the name of an island 

 in the western part of the group, south of Viti-levu, of another in the 

 eastern part, near Lakemba, and of a district upon the last-named 

 island, to which the spirits of the dead are supposed to repair before 

 they descend to their final residence in the Mbulu or Hades. Both 

 these names are found in the Tonga Group, where they are applied 

 to the two largest islands of the Habai Cluster (Lefuka and Namuka), 



