VITIAN GRAMMAR. 385 



This song, as well as those which follow, was obtained from a chief of Mbua, or San- 

 dalwood Ray, at which place a dialect prevails differing both from that of Ovolau, where 

 our interpreter resided, and from those of Lakemba and Sormisomu, of which we had 

 vocabularies ; in some cases, therefore, a difficulty was experienced in arriving at the 

 exact interpretation, a difficulty increased by the elliptical form of expression, and the 

 poetical license in the use of words to which the native bards have recourse in order to 

 meet the exactions of their complicated metrical system. The following is the meaning 

 of the above, as near as we could obtain it : 



We two were sleeping in the council-house of Mbatua ; 



I awake suddenly as the moon is rising. 



My girdle I am going to cut in two. 



The dew is falling heavily without; 



All our things I am going to put in a chest, 



[For] (he dew is falling heavily without. 



The mlmre is the large house which is found in every town, and which serves for 

 council-house, temple, and house of reception for strangers. Two are represented in the 

 song as sleeping in a house of this kind, called Mbatua, having left the articles which 

 they had brought with them (probably the dresses, paints, &c., provided for the dance) on 

 the outside. One of them awakes at the rising of the moon, and finds that the night is 

 clear, and that a heavy dew is falling; he divides his girdle or cincture of native cloth to 

 give half of it to his companion (which the natives frequently do, as the girdle is long and 

 wrapped round the body in several folds), and proceeds to put their property where it will 

 not be injured by the moisture. There is nothing poetical in the verse, which was pro- 

 bably composed to suit the rhyme, the first line chancing to terminate in u a, the poet 

 went on to string together as many words of this termination as he could recollect. 

 Mtinduva, which properly signifies to cut or gash, as a stick or a finger, is used, for the 

 consonance, instead of kosova, which means to clip, or cut with scissors or a shell. 

 Rukitmbi is not in the vocabulary, but we find taumbi a layi, meaning, a heavy (all of 

 rain ; rukiimbi a au we suppose to mean (at least, in this dialect), a heavy fall of dew. 

 Turn is to drop, to drizzle. Rumbu means a chest or box, but by taking the suffix na 

 it becomes a verb, as in English we say " to box up." Koto means to put, to place, 

 and, as a neuter, to lie, to be placed ; but it is used after another verb to express con- 

 tinuance of the action or condition, answering to the participial forms in English I am 

 sleeping, we were lying, &c. ; tiko, toka, and no, are used in a similar manner. Ni 

 before Sambe is probably used for ni naiSa, or some such adverb, meaning when, as, or 

 the like. 



The following song is similar to the preceding, but its two rhyming vowels are a i : 



Au tiko mai na Tambu-tayani, 

 A oru meke ka lak 1 i turumaki, 

 A toa kula ka tayi takari, 

 Andra Sola tiko, kau ygai tayi 

 Kau mbau Suru a se ni kundravi 

 Salusalu ni vuSu makerevaki. 



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